Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Colonel M. Morgan,Welsh Regiment, who, aged 60 years, commanded the 1/5th Battalion with great dash on the Gallipoli peninsula

1914-15 Star (Lt. Col. M. Morgan, Welsh R.); British War and Victory Medals (Lt. Col. M. Morgan); Volunteer Officer’s Decoration, E.VII.R., silver, silver-gilt, very fine and better (4) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to Welsh Regiments formed by the Late Llewellyn Lord.

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Morgan Morgan was born in Mountain Ash, Glamorgan, in 1854, the son of David Morgan, the agent to Lord Aberdare. Educated locally, he seemed destined to become a mining engineer and colliery manager, but on the death of his father, he, too, was appointed agent to Lord Aberdare.

He was otherwise a keen member of the Volunteer Forces, having first been commissioned in the Glamorganshire Rifle Volunteer Corps in March 1874. Subsequently granted the honorary rank of Major in the 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion, Welsh Regiment in January 1899, he was awarded the Volunteer Decoration (London Gazette 5 August 1904, refers), and was still serving as a Lieutenant-Colonel on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914:

‘Then came the war in 1914, which found Colonel Morgan in camp with his battalion [1/5th Welsh Regiment]. Although he was now sixty years old he did not shirk his duties in any way, and when the Battalion was ordered overseas he went with it as commanding officer, and in 1915 led his men in the landing at Gallipoli and subsequent actions’ (a local newspaper report refers).

In fact, given his advanced years and the harsh climate, Morgan served with great dash, his second-in-command, Major W. Dowdeswell, stating as much in letters home to the Merthyr Express. Of the Battalion’s first action, fought after landing at Suvla on 9 August 1915, Dowdeswell describes Morgan as behaving magnificently. Another battalion correspondent stated:

‘Colonel Morgan was in the very thick of the fight and though bullets and pieces of shrapnel fell like hailstones, he went about from Platoon to Platoon uttering words of encouragement to the men who fought so bravely.’

Inevitably, perhaps, the Colonel was eventually invalided home, but he was not alone in that respect: by mid-December, just one officer remained of the Battalion’s ‘originals’ from the landings back in August 1915.

He died in February 1930, when it was said: ‘As an officer he was not too old to fight; as a citizen - never too old to serve, as a man - never too busy to help’; sold with copied research.