The Morgans of Tredegar House : Newport South Wales

  WELSH MYSTERY 1925 Honourable  Gwyneth Ericka Morgan ‘ A Beautiful Nuisance’ 'POOR GWYNETH' Honourable Gwyneth Ericka Morgan (1895-1924)    Poor Gwyneth!  The Honourable Gwyneth Ericka Morgan, was the only daughter of Courtenay Morgan, the third Lord Tredegar. She was one of the Bright Young People of the post  Great War era who disappeared from a house in Wimbledon in 1924 and whose body was later discovered in the River Thames . Gwyneth was born in London in 1895, the second child of Courtenay Morgan and Katharine Carnegie, later Lord and Lady Tredegar, of Tredegar Park, Monmouthshire. The family history on both her father and mothers sides is filled with a variety of the rich, the famous and the notorious. The Morgans had their roots in South Wales . The Carnegies in the Highlands of Scotland . Gwyneth spent a great deal of her life in London, or abroad, and in the Surrey home maintained by her mother, near Dorking. She also spent time with her m...

  Gwyneth Morgan's Kinfolk Grandpa Freddie’s London Town House was in historic Portman Square, London   Gwyneth Morgan came into the world at her Morgan grandfather’s London town house at No 39 Portman Square, London.  He was Tory MP, Colonel Hon. Frederic Courtenay Morgan, known as Freddie or often Fred. He was heir to the Barony of Tredegar, according to Vanity Fair of 1893 a man with “a beautiful moustache”.  Caricatures of Freddie in the magazines like Vanity Fair show him to be the very model of the Victorian gentleman, a dandy dresser, supporting a large set of whiskers and often the most “extraordinary” bow ties. Freddie was a widower, his  Scottish wife, Charlotte Williamson, had died in 1891, the year after Courtenay and Katharine were married.  William Cross, FSA Scot Culled from the early drafts of  the book on Gwyneth :  “A Beautiful Nuisance”: The Life and Death of Hon. Gwyneth Erika Morgan:  by Monty Dart and William Cro...

  The Birth of Gwyneth Ericka Morgan  Of Tredegar House, Newport   Gwyneth’s Birth “ the icy fang and churlish chiding of the winter’s wind” Shakespeare   The story opens on Saturday, 5 January, 1895.   As Lady Katharine Morgan fell in and out of birth-pains at No. 39, Portman Square , Marylebone, London ,  across the English Channel in Paris another ordeal was being played out on the main parade ground of the Ecole Militaire .  French Army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was being publically stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island . Queen Victoria was 75 years old and had already reigned  for 57 years. Her son Bertie, the Prince of Wales, (who later became King Edward VII) was within earshot of Katharine’s cries. He was at No. 15, Portman Square enjoying lunch with his daughter, Louise, the Princess Royal and his son in law, Alexander William George Duff, the Duke of Fife . London of the time still re...

  Tredegar House, Newport, South Wales The Seat of the Morgan Family Tredegar House "The Worst of Times" Failure To Attract Visitors Targeted COVID 19 -Hit Tredegar House closed but the National Trust were staring at failure before the pandemic  Ne wport has one of the highest number of COVID 19 infections in the whole of  Wales. This ghastly virus has taken many lives, it remains in free fall and a vaccine is still a far off  dream. The deadly spread and aftermath of the infection’s invisible power makes this a frightening era for all.     Tredegar House, the old Morgan mansion, was closed for many months under the first Welsh government virus lockdown of March 2020,  and although there was a brief reopening in September-  early October 2020,  albeit with restrictions on the numbers of visitors, the house has closed again.  This closure  was  to  avoid  virus transmission to  National Trust staff and those membe...