Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

A Gower Man Serving the Dragon Throne: the Career of E A. Morgan (1844-1907) by Prys Morgan During the summer and autumn of 1993 an exhibition entitled 'All that Glisters was held at the British Museum, London, by its department of coins and medals, in which were displayed the various colourful bejewelled insignia of the Order of the Double Dragon granted by the Emperor of China to one of his mandarins, Frank Arthur Morgan. Since Morgan was a Gower man, and since this journal has over the years paid attention to local people serving overseas, such as Griffith John in China, it is surely not inap- propriate here to give a glimpse of his exotic career. Frank Arthur Morgan was born on 24th February 1844 at Cae Forgan, Llanrhidian, the third son of a barrister and a minor local landowner Charles Morgan (1796-1857) and his wife Caroline, daughter of the Rector of Penmaen, John James.' He died in a London hospital on 11th February 1907 and was buried in the churchyard of Bishopston. He married in 1892 Winifred Dorothy the daughter of his cousin Stanley Morgan, and had three children, Frank Stanley born in 1893 at Seoul, Korea; Helen born at Kiukiang (now Jiujiang), China in 1895, and Winifred Gordon, also born at Jiujiang in 1897. He inherited from his uncle Henry John Morgan the farm of Herberts Lodge, Bishopston in 1859, which he made his British home from 1885 onwards, rebuilding and extending it in 1886, this being in turn the home of his son, who died in his hundredth year in 1992.2 F. A. Morgan's introduction to the Far East was through his elder brother, Charles Edward Morgan (1836-1911), of Oakfield Park, Berkshire and Cae Forgan, Llanrhidian, later Colonel of the 67th Regiment of Foot, who took part in 1860 in the Opium Wars, and in the sack of the Summer Palace in the outskirts of Peking. C. E. Morgan decided that the Orient was not for him, and returned to follow a military career. Frank, being a third son, found that he had to make his own way in the world. He was encour- aged to sail out to China in May 1864 on the S.S. 'Far East', arriving in China in July and joining the Chinese Imperial Customs Service as a fourth class clerk. It should be explained that as a result of the two Opium Wars, the Chinese were forced by Britain and other European countries to open up their coasts to foreign trade, and, to put a most complicated matter very simply, in exchange for great quantities of tea which were sold to Britain and