The above book states W. Ritson Morry won the Midland Open Chess Championship 4 times as of the 1973 printing of the book and he also won the British Correspondence Chess Championship in 1942; the war must have been raging then.

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

The details of the case aren't quite so ennobling:

Birmingham Gazette, July 26th 1945, p.3:

<“NO INTENTION TO DEFRAUD” PLEA

Solicitor’s Reply to Gambling Allegations: Surplus Assets

Allegations that he had used clients' money to indulge in dog racing were made at Birmingham Assizes yesterday when 43-year-old William Ritson Morry, a Sutton Coldfield solicitor, came before Mr. Justice Humphreys, on charges of fraudulent conversion.

There were four counts in the indictment accusing him of the conversion of more than £3,000.

It was stated that Morry had been adjudicated bankrupt in November, 1943.

Morry, who conducted his own defence. was addressing the jury, and had argued that as the trustee in bankruptcy had realised assets which left a surplus over liabilities and consequently there was no fraudulent conversion, when the Judge adjourned the hearing until to-day.

Outlining the counts in the indictment, Mr. Sandlands, K.C.. who prosecuted, said that two sisters named Schofield each left estates to the other. Both died and, alleged the prosecution, two cheques each for £750 were paid over to accused, acting for the executor by the Sutton Coldfield Borough Treasurer in respect of Corporation bonds. The surviving executor eventually obtained judgment against Morry.

Another count in the indictment, said counsel, involved a sum of £986, the money of Annie Jones, on whose behalf Morry sold a house at Wylde Green for £1,100. The purchaser kept a record of the numbers of nine £100 notes which were paid over.

On three successive Saturdays, alleged counsel, a lad employed by Morry as a junior clerk. changed £100 notes for £5 notes at the bank, and on three successive Mondays no less than £580 of those notes were paid in to the Perry Barr Stadium.

There was no response to Mrs. Jones's application for her money.

"The bulk of the money was used in what?" — "Dog-racing.”

The fourth count in the indictment, said counsel, arose from the sale of a house at College-road, New Oscott, for a Mrs. Minnie Green, and the purchase for her of a house on Bromyard Downs, Worcestershire. A sum of £650, which should have been received by Mrs. Green, had never been accounted for by Morry.

Mrs. Green stated that because accused did not pay over to the vendor to the purchase price of the house at Bromyard Downs she had to pay rent until the Law Society came to her assistance and completed the purchase.

The only witness for the defence was Mr. A. R. Bendall, trustee in bankruptcy, who said accused's liabilities amounted to £6,805 and the total realisation of assets up to date had been £7,595. Out of that amount he had paid a first dividend of 13s. 4d. in the £. He had a surplus of assets over liabilities of about £500 and, assuming the remaining assets were got in, that would be increased to some £2,000.

Cross-examined, witness agreed that the increase in assets was largely due to certain shares having increased in value.

Morry elected not to give evidence, and, addressing the jury contended that he had had no intention to defraud any of the parties.

How did it come about, if the money was lost on gambling, he asked, that the trustee had raised just over £7,500?

<William Ritson Morry (34), described as a solicitor, of Sutton Coldfield, was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment by Mr. Justice Humphreys, at Birmingham Assizes, yesterday. He was accused of fraudulently converting to his own use money entrusted him by clients.

In passing sentence, the Judge said accused would have been very well advised to have pleaded guilty. His defence to the charges was perfectly ridiculous.