(Philip), a learned and indefatigable antiquary and biographer, son of Stephen Morant, was born at St Saviour's in the Isle of Jersey, October 6, 1700; and, after finishing his education at Abingdon School, was entered December 16th, 1717, at Pembroke College Oxford, where he took the degree of B.A. June 10th, 1721, and continued till midsummer 1722; when he was preferred to the office of preacher of the English church at Amsterdam, but never went to take possession. He took the degree of M.A. in 1724, and was presented to the rectory of Shellow Bowells, April 20th, 1733; to the vicarage of Bromfield, January 17th, 1733-4; to the rectory of Chicknat Smeley, September 19th, 1735; to that of St Mary's, Colchester, March 9th, 1737; to that of Wickham Bishop's, January 21st, 1742-3; and to that of Aldham, September 14th, 1745. All these benefices are in the county of Essex. In 1748 he published his History of Colchester, of which only 200 copies were printed. In 1751 he was elected F.S.A.; and in February 1768 he was appointed by the lords sub-committees of the House of Peers to succeed Mr Blyke in preparing for the press a copy of the rolls of parliament; a service to which he diligently attended till his death, which happened November 25th, 1770. Besides the above work, and many useful translations, abridgements, and compilations, &c., he wrote, all the Lives in the Biographia Britannica marked C; also the Life of Stillington, which has no mark at the end: The History of Essex, 1760, 1768, 2 vols folio: The Life of King Edward the Confessor, and about 150 sermons. He prepared the rolls of parliament as far as the 16th of Henry IV. The continuation of the task devolved upon Thomas Aylett, Esq.; who had married his only daughter.