Hugh Morris was the third son of a respectable freeholder living upon his own farm in the beautiful valley of Ceiriog Denbighshire; he was born in the year 1622. Whether he had any education beside what he acquired by his own application, is not known.

Being the youngest son, he was apprenticed, at a proper age, to a tanner who lived at a house called “Gwaliau” near Overton on the Dee, in Flintshire. Some say that the young bard quitted that situation before the expiration of his time. But it appears from one of his juvenile songs that it was not the case. In a humorous piece he complains bitterly of the restrictions he lay under by the obligations of this indenture, that he dared not even to speak to the object of his affections without incurring a penalty of £40, and that when the grievous term of ‘seven’ years had expired, his mind was much gratified with the pleasing prospect of regaining his liberty, so that he might without such servile shackles renew his addresses to his admired ‘fair one.’ But lo! haunted, as it were by crosses and disappointments, a new law was passed which restricted the marriage ceremony to a magistrate. The young couple, instead of having their banns, as theretofore, asked by a minister in church, were to be proclaimed as candidates for the state of wedlock in the open street, at the cross of the nearest market town upon three successive market days.