Lord Walter Morgan was chairman of the Bettabuy supermarket chain.
From humble beginnings working a fruit stall on the market, Walter joined Bettabuy wheeling trolleys at the Middlesbrough branch and worked his way up to the very top. Known for his spot checks, in March 1992 he caught Reg Holdsworth unawares by inspecting the Weatherfield branch, posing as a customer. When Reg caught the burly man in the fruit and veg aisle squeezing the produce, he demanded that he desist and even asked him to leave the store when he admitted that he did not plan to make a purchase. Assistant manager Curly Watts, recognising Walter from the company reports, enlightened his hapless superior, but to the surprise of both Walter told Reg that he had been right to challenge him.
On the same visit, Walter took the opportunity to see his daughter Vanessa, who was working at the branch to gain experience on a management trainee scheme. The apple of her father's eye, Vanessa had decided to follow in his footsteps by making a career at Bettabuy. While she wasn't the first of his children to do so, she was the first one not to be given special treatment by her branch's manager. Approving of this, Walter again passed on his compliments to Reg, not realising that Reg had only just learned of Vanessa's identity and had actually mistreated her due to her being university-educated rather than working her way up on the shop floor.
Walter's next encounter with Reg came four months later, when he and Vanessa joined a Bettabuy staff outing at a hotel. When they arrived, the pair were greeted by the unusual sight of area manager Brendan Scott sans trousers being chased downstairs by a bunch of women. Moments earlier, Reg had made a desperate plea to Walter not to judge someone by their mistakes and, moved by the speech, Walter decided to overlook the incident. In fact, Walter had again misconstrued the situation; Reg had actually been trying to save his own job, as Brendan had earlier caught him in the same predicament.
In June 1993, Walter summoned Reg to Head Office for a one-on-one meeting. Reg thought he was going to be fired, but instead he was promoted to Bettabuy area manager, replacing Brendan Scott who had taken a redundancy package. Seven months later, Reg was also made redundant. On his last day with the chain in January 1994, Walter paid a visit to the Weatherfield store, finding ten minutes free before he was due at the golf club to read a farewell speech and present Reg with some souvenirs - a framed picture of Head Office (handed to Reg upside down) and a £200 Bettabuy voucher for garden furniture (in order to clear stock which wasn't selling). While at the store, Walter dropped a bombshell on manager Curly Watts: that his assistant manager Elaine Fenwick was replacing Reg as area manager, and was therefore now his boss.
- As well as his two Coronation Street appearances, David Ellison played Lord Morgan in the 1992 ITV Telethon minisode, which is treated as canonical on this Wiki.