Family and Education

b. c.1641, 4th but 3rd surv. s. of Thomas Morgan† of Machen, Mon. by his 2nd w. Elizabeth, da. and h. of Francis Wyndham of Sandhill Park, Bishop’s Lydeard, Som.; bro. of William Morgan†.  unm.1

Offices Held

Asst. R. African Co. 1675, 1680–2, 1685–7, 1690–1711.2

Trustee, receiving loan to Emperor 1706.3

Member, Weaver Co.4

Biography

Left an annuity of £50 in his father’s will, Morgan made his fortune as a London merchant, perhaps specializing in the West Indian trade. In 1682 his address was given as St. Margaret’s, Lothbury. Little has been discovered of his mercantile activities, but in 1693 (after the loss of the Smyrna convoy) he joined with (Sir) Joseph Herne*, Jeffrey Jeffreys* and others in petitioning for a man-o’-war to be sent to protect their merchandise in the Straits ports. He re-established himself in local society with the purchase of Ruperra from a cousin for £12,400, and in 1701 was returned on the family interest for Monmouth. As one of three Morgans in the Commons, his contribution to the business of the House is impossible to identify with any certainty, and he does not appear on any parliamentary list. In the 1705 general election he abandoned the borough to join his nephew John Morgan II* in contesting the county, possibly because of a recrudescence of the Beaufort interest in the borough, but was narrowly defeated by Sir Hopton Williams, 3rd Bt.* An aversion among the country gentlemen to electing two members of the same family as knights of the shire probably accounts for his failure to put up in 1708. Two years later Morgan signed the London lieutenancy’s address condemning the riots in the capital during the trial of Dr Sacheverell as the work of ‘papists and non-jurors’. Although he subsequently paid £9,000 for the manor of Gwynllwg in Monmouthshire from the Herbert estate, and in 1712 was ‘complimented’ by the Duke of Beaufort in the negotiations preceding a county by-election, he did not stand for Parliament again. Morgan died on 1 Jan. 1715, and was buried at Machen, Monmouthshire. His property was consolidated into the estate of the house of Tredegar.5

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

• 1. G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum, 312; A. Morgan, Morgan Fam. 16; DWB, 636–7.
• 2. K. G. Davies, R. African Co. 385.
• 3. Boyer, Anne Annals, iv. 125.
• 4. De Krey thesis, iii. 496.
• 5. Morgan Fam. Mems. ed. G. B. Morgan, ii. 239–42; DWB, 636–7; Mar. Lic. Vicar-Gen. (Harl. Soc. xxx), 94; R. Walcott, Pol. Early 18th Cent. 163; Cal. Treas. Bks. x. 365–6; Arch. Camb. ser. 5, ii. 269; NLW, Tredegar mss 78/12, articles of agreement, n.d.; 53/105(b), John Morgan II* to James Gunter*, 2 Jan. 1711–12; Add. ch. 76120; Le Neve, Mon. Angl. 1650–1718, p. 268.