Historian Allan Arthur Morrison was born at Mount Morgan in Queensland on 23 November 1911. He won the Lilley Medal in 1925, the Byrnes Medal in 1927 and a State Open Scholarship to the University of Queensland in 1929, where he graduated with first-class honours in History. He lectured in the History Department of the University of Queensland from 1945 to 1971. In 1963, he was made a fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, having been its president from 1948 to 1953. He served terms on the boards of Newstead House and the Oxley Memorial Library as well as fostering the formation of the Queensland State Archives. He was a contributor to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. His published works were mainly on local government and regional history, as well as the role of the Australian Labor Party in Queensland politics from 1915 to 1957.