Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar


Evan Frederic Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar was a Welsh peer, poet and eccentric. Following the death of his father on 3 May 1934, Morgan became the 2nd Viscount and 4th Baron Tredegar, and the 6th Morgan Baronet. Morgan was also known to his friends as Evan Tredegar.

Life

He was the son of Courtenay Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar, and Lady Katharine Carnegie, daughter of the 9th Earl of Southesk.
Morgan was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford University. While working as private secretary to a government minister, W. C. Bridgeman, in 1917, he became friendly with another Oxford man, the poet Robert Graves, who had been a school friend of Evan's cousin, Raymond Rodakowski. They shared an interest in both poetry and the supernatural.
A Roman Catholic convert, Morgan was a Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape to Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI. An accomplished occultist, he was hailed by Aleister Crowley as the 'Adept of Adepts'.In 1929, he unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate for Limehouse. After the death of his father, in 1934, he took possession of the family seat of Tredegar House, near Newport, where he had a menagerie of animals and birds. He dedicated one room, his 'magik room', to his study of the occult.
He fought in the First World War, gaining the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the Welsh Guards, and in 1930 was appointed an honorary Colonel. During the Second World War with MI8, his responsibility was to monitor carrier pigeons. He carelessly let slip on occasion departmental secrets to two girl guides and was court martialled but not sent to jail or worse.
Morgan provided inspiration for the character "Ivor Lombard" in Aldous Huxley's 1921 Crome Yellow, and for Eddie Monteith in Ronald Firbank's The Flower Beneath the Foot.
He was decorated with the following awards:
In 1937 or 1938 Edith Mary Hinchley painted him. This painting is in the National Trust collection.

Marriages

Despite his known homosexuality, he married twice.
During a luncheon with Marie Belloc Lowndes in 1946, Morgan stated that he was "toying with the idea of proposing to Lady Illingworth", a wealthy widower, in an attempt to secure the finances of the depleted Tredegar estates. Belloc noted " has an enormous number of acquaintances – I fear no friends."

Death

Evan Morgan died on 27 April 1949, aged 55. As he died childless, the viscountcy became extinct. However, the barony and estates passed to his uncle, Frederic, who became the fifth Baron Tredegar. To avoid further death-duties on his own demise, Frederic had arranged for Tredegar House and the estates to be passed passed immediately to his son, John, who eventually disposed of both the house and estates due to taxation.

Works

  • Fragments
  • Gold and Ochre
  • At Dawn
  • The Eel
  • ''The City of Canals''