Rhodri Morgan
Hywel Rhodri Morgan was a Welsh Labour politician who was the First Minister of Wales and the Leader of Welsh Labour from 2000 to 2009. He was also the Assembly Member for Cardiff West from 1999 to 2011 and the Member of Parliament for Cardiff West from 1987 to 2001. He remains the longest-serving First Minister of Wales, having served in the position for 9 years and 304 days. He was Chancellor of Swansea University from 2011 until his death in 2017.
Early life and education
Hywel Rhodri Morgan was born at Mrs Gill's Nursing Home in Roath, Cardiff on 29 September 1939. He was the younger of two children born to the Welsh writer and academic Thomas John Morgan and his wife Huana Morgan, a writer and schoolteacher. Morgan was born into a Welsh-speaking academic family. His native language was Welsh, though he later became fluent in English, French and German as well. His mother was one of the first women to study at University College, Swansea, where she read Welsh. She became a schoolteacher in Rhymney before settling in Radyr after her retirement. Morgan's father also read Welsh at University College, Swansea, before reading Old Irish at University College, Dublin. He became a Welsh language lecturer at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and a Welsh language professor at University College, Swansea, where he also served as the vice-principal. He met Huana at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1926 and they married in 1935. Their first child, Morgan's brother Prys Morgan, was born in Cardiff in 1937. He would grow up to become a history professor at Swansea University. Morgan was also related to the academic Garel Rhys, who was his second cousin.Childhood and education
Morgan was raised with his brother Prys in the village of Radyr in outer Cardiff. Until the age of 21, he lived with his family at 32 Heol Isaf, in a house which sat on the main road of the village beside what is now a Methodist church. Morgan was born in the first month of World War II, and the conflict had a great presence in his life during his early childhood. He retained vivid memories of air raid sirens and prisoners of war into adulthood. He also had a lifelong love for gardening which began when he watched his father grow vegetables for the wartime dig for victory campaign. Radyr did, however, avoid the conflict's worst hardships. Morgan had a mostly positive childhood, however he was often ill as an infant, and he almost died from pneumonia in 1942. As a child, Morgan was nicknamed "fuzzy" by his family and friends for his curly, frizzy hair.In 1944, Morgan started attending Radyr Primary School. Having begun his education near the end of World War II, Morgan found his class in the first year of primary school was mostly populated by evacuees. In 2005, Morgan remarked that the school was "like the League of Nations" because of the refugees and evacuees in Radyr. The school was populated by a combination of evacuees and children from Radyr and Morganstown, another village in Cardiff, with the children from Morganstown accounting for 66% of its population. At the time, other children from Radyr would instead be sent to The Cathedral School in Llandaff, which was a private school. Morgan showed signs of intelligence at school, and he would be tracked two academic years ahead of his peers, sharing classes with his older brother Prys. He finished primary school in 1950 and passed his eleven-plus examination. He attended Whitchurch Grammar School, becoming one of the few children from Radyr to attend a school in Whitchurch at the time. At the grammar school, Morgan achieved high results in most subjects but science. He finished his secondary education there in 1957 after winning a place at St John's College, Oxford on an open exhibition for the study of modern languages.
At Oxford, Morgan studied modern languages for two academic terms before becoming disinterested in the subject and changing his subject to philosophy, politics and economics. Morgan disliked the formal and ostentatious atmosphere of Oxford, and he later said he "had more respect for a semi-retired porter … than for the college president". Morgan graduated from Oxford in 1961. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with second class honours in PPE. Morgan's American friends from his time at Oxford convinced him to apply for a place at Harvard University. His second class honours was enough to secure him a place at Harvard to read a Master of Arts degree in government. Morgan's studies in the United States were paid for through a scholarship. He graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with a Master of Arts degree in government in 1963, before coming back to the United Kingdom in that year's summer.
Early political involvement
Morgan's interest in politics began when he was eleven or twelve years old. He had convinced his mother to take him to a local political meeting. At the meeting he saw Dorothy Rees, the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Barry, shouted down by public school pupils who supported the Conservative Party, which made her cry. Morgan later recalled thinking: "I'm going to nail those bastards". He was an active member of the Oxford University Labour Club and is said to have discouraged other students at Oxford from joining Plaid Cymru. By the time Morgan finished his studies at Harvard, he had decided to pursue his political interests practically rather than academically. He joined the Labour Party in December 1963, where he became a member of the constituency Labour Party for Cardiff South East.Early career
Morgan returned to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1963, where he took up his first job as a tutor organiser for the Workers' Educational Association, which was then a training ground for future Labour Party MPs. He was responsible for organising the association's tutors in South Wales. In December, Morgan attended a local Labour Party meeting where he met Labour activists Julie Edwards and Neil Kinnock, the future leader of the Labour Party. In the same month, Morgan moved into a flat in Cardiff, which he shared with Kinnock and two other local Labour Party activists until 1965. Together, the flatmates engaged in anti-apartheid activism. In the 1964 general election, Morgan campaigned with Edwards, Kinnock and Kinnock's partner Glenys in support of James Callaghan, the Labour MP for Cardiff South East who later became prime minister. Morgan pursued a relationship with Edwards and after three years of campaigning together they married on 22 April 1967. They had their first child, Mari, in 1968, and a second child, Siani, in 1969. They also had an adopted son, Stuart, who was born in 1969 or 1970.In 1966, Morgan was considered for selection as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North, though he was ultimately not selected. At the time, Morgan did not have a strong interest in a parliamentary career, and whilst Kinnock and other former WEA workers quickly became MPs, he instead wanted to spend time with his family. By the time of the 1970 general election he had a wife and three children, and he may have believed that a parliamentary career and its instabilities would take too much time away from them. He left the WEA in 1965, taking up jobs as a research officer for Cardiff City Council, the Welsh Office and the Department of the Environment in that order, remaining in this field of work until 1971. At the Welsh Office, Morgan authored documents to expand the M4 motorway through parts of South Wales. He also contributed to the creation of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre in Wales, as well as the relocation of the Royal Mint and a part of the Inland Revenue to Wales. In addition to his work as a research officer at Cardiff City Council, Morgan was also a junior town planner. He reported to the Cardiff City Planning Department.
In 1972, Morgan became a civil servant at the Department of Trade and Industry where he worked for Christopher Chataway as an economic adviser. He remained at the department until 1974. In 1974, Morgan became the industrial development officer for South Glamorgan County Council, which he said was his "dream job". He stopped working for the council in 1980. From 1980 to 1987 Morgan worked at the European Commission's Office for Wales as the head of its press and information bureau. His ability to speak German, Welsh and French proved useful. In this role, he was the highest paid civil servant in Wales.
Morgan's work had permitted him to keep living in Cardiff while staying politically active as a neutral civil servant. However, he was still interested in partisan politics, and he was thinking about standing as an MP. In 1985, Morgan decided to stand for parliament after his wife was elected as a councillor for South Glamorgan County Council. James Callaghan had announced his plans to retire from his seat, Cardiff South and Penarth, at the next general election, and Morgan intended to take over from Callaghan as Labour's candidate for the seat. However, another contender had already been promised local support by the Labour Party. Morgan was encouraged to seek selection in the seat of Cardiff West instead. He was successfully nominated for selection as Labour's candidate in Cardiff West, beating contenders such as Ivor Richard, the United Kingdom's former ambassador to the United Nations, where he would stand in the 1987 general election.
Parliamentary career
In the 1987 general election, Morgan was elected as the Labour MP for Cardiff West, defeating the incumbent Conservative MP Stefan Terlezki, who had been elected in the 1983 general election. Morgan won the seat with a majority of 4,045 votes. He increased his majority to 9,291 in the 1992 general election and 15,628 in the 1997 general election. He was sponsored by the Transport and General Workers' Union and shared an office at Transport House with Alun Michael, the Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, following their election to parliament in 1987. He was joined in parliament by his wife Julie following the 1997 general election, when she was elected as the Labour MP for Cardiff North.Morgan made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 8 July 1987, during a debate on a Finance Bill. The media developed a liking for Morgan; The Times reviewed the maiden speeches of the 1987 parliamentary intake and placed Morgan's maiden speech into joint-first place. He established a reputation for being a "maverick" and a witty and outspoken "loose-cannon". In line with the majority of backbench MPs from Wales, Morgan aligned himself with the soft left of the Labour Party. He was associated with the "Riverside Mafia", a group of soft left Labour councillors in South Glamorgan County Council which included Mark Drakeford, Jane Hutt, Sue Essex and Morgan's wife Julie. Morgan's main interests as an MP were industrial policy, regional policy, regional development, health, European affairs, the environment, and the conservation of wild life, particularly marine life and birds. He also had an interest in freedom of information.