The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Pell, Professor Morris Birkbeck
Pell, Professor Morris Birkbeck, M.A. was born in the United States about 1823, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated as Senior Wrangler. He was also Fellow of his college. He was appointed to the chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Sydney University at its establishment in 1852, and was a member of the Water and Sewerage and the Hunter River Floods Prevention Commissions, He was also for some time actuary of the Australian Mutual Provident Society. In 1877, in consequence of failing health, he retired from his university employments on a pension, which had been guaranteed him by the Senate. In 1878 he was elected a Fellow of the Senate in conjunction with Sir Alfred Stephen. Professor Pell, who was admitted a barrister of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1863, and was one of the trustees of the Sydney Grammar School, died on May 7th, 1879.