Kilvert, immoral tenants, and the concubine made good

In May 1870, Kilvert was indignant.

He was much exercised about the “sad doings at Cwmpelved Green”.  On Sunday 12^th May he noted that he had spoken to Wall

about the desirability of trying to get James Allen to dislodge his immoral tenants at Cwmpelved Green.

What was going on ? Edward Morgan, who lived at Cwmpelved Green, was a young unmarried man whose domestic arrangements outraged Kilvert. The census of the following year records that Edward had a housekeeper. He was 26, she 17, and Kilvert was not fooled. He would have known that Wall was likely to be a good ally. When Wall was showing Kilvert round his new farm-house, Kilvert noted (28 June 1871)

Wall pointed out to me with satisfaction the door with a lock which separated the sleeping rooms of the servant boys and girls.

Wall was unlikely to be approving of Edward Morgan’s domestic arrangements at Cwmpelved Green.

And Edward Morgan had form.

In September 1870, there was an

unsuccessful attempt by Samuel Evans daughter of the Bird’s Nest to father the daughter’s base child upon Edward Morgan of Cwmpelved Green

On this occasion Kilvert reserved his indignation for Emily Evans’ mother, who had

been shameless enough to let the young man sit up at night with Emily after she and her husband had gone to bed.

He was clear in his own mind that

Such conduct ought to be strongly marked and disapproved.

Emily Evans’ illegitimate son, Henry Evans, was baptised at Clyro on 14^th August 1870. She was 20 years old, and if Edward Morgan was the father, the case against him was not proved.

But the story does not end here, and becomes one of the most charming vignettes in the diary. It says much about Kilvert and his attitudes, and leaves us with a strong impression of a man who was not afraid to rearrange his prejudices when the facts changed.

On 5^th July 1871

Edward Morgan of Cwmpelved Green brought his concubine to Church and married her. She was a girl of 19, rather nice looking and seemed quiet and modest. She had a pretty bridesmaid and they were both nicely prettily dressed in lilac and white.

Here you can sense a change of mood. The immoral tenants were trying to make things right, and Kilvert was mollified. Pretty faces tended to charm him easily. A fortnight later, Kilvert went to visit the newly married couple. What he found was quite different from what he had expected:

At Cwmpelved Green the low garden wall was flaming with nasturtiums which had clambered over it from the garden and which were now swinging their rude lusty arms and hands about feeling for some support to take hold of. Their luxuriant growth had almost smothered the gooseberry trees under the wall. Along the narrow garden border nodded a brilliant row of gigantic sweet wiliams.

Within the cottage sat old Richard Clark, and the pretty girl lately Edward Morgan’s concubine, now happily his wife. I had thought Edward Morgan had a comfortless, miserable home. I was never more mistaken or surprised. The cottage was exquisitely clean and neat, with a bright blue cheerful paper and almost prettily furnished. A vase of bright fresh flowers stood upon each table and I could have eaten my dinner off every stone on the floor. The girl said no one ever came near the house to see it, and she kept it as clean and neat and pretty as she could for her own satisfaction. The oven door was screened from view by a little curtain and everything was made to most and best of. I don’t wonder Edward Morgan married the girl. It was not her fault that they were not married before. She begged and prayed her lover to marry her before he seduced her and afterwards. She was very staunch and faithful to him when she was his mistress and I believe she will make him a good wife. She was ironing when I came in and when I began to read to old Clark she took her work and sat down quietly to sew. When I had done reading she had me into the garden and shewed me her flowers with which she had taken some pains for she was very fond of them. No one ever came to see her garden or her flowers she said. The only people she ever saw passing were people from the farm (the Upper Bettws where her husband works). They come on Market days along a footpath through the field before the house. The girl spoke quietly and rather mournfully and there was a shade of gentle melancholy in her voice and manner. I was deeply touched by all that I saw and heard. With a kind carefulness she put me on the footpath to the Upper Bettws farm……

Kilvert was so clearly deeply touched. The warmth of his detailed observation says it all. The burgeoning garden seems to be a symbol of the wholesome relationship which Kilvert hoped would blossom.

But who were the immoral tenants who do not appear elsewhere in the diary ? And how did their story end ?

Edward Morgan was born in Brilley in 1845, the second son of Jane Morgan who remained unmarried. His father is not easy to locate. Edward Morgan took his mother’s surname, and his father is invisible as far as the records are concerned. Or almost invisible.  The record of Edward’s marriage (I am very grateful to John Palmer who let me see it) shows that his father was Edward Watkins, a farmer.

For obvious reasons there can be no certainty here, but a likely candidate as Edward’s father is the Edward Watkins who was born in Clyro around 1815. Just a little older than Jane Morgan, he was around 30 when Edward Morgan was born. And in 1851 he and his wife were living with his mother who was farming 32 acres at Caenoyadd.

An irrelevant but irresistible aside here is that on 3^rd April 1872 Kilvert visited James Pitt “with the wooden leg. He had recently moved from Oxford to Caenoyadd. He flitted at Candlemas and on Good Friday his old house fell down.” The amusement here lies in the fact that moving from Oxford to Caenoyadd involved merely moving chattels from one house into next door. Caenoyadd and Oxford were adjacent.

By 1861 Edward Morgan was a carter for a farmer, and by 1871, when his behaviour was irritating Kilvert, he was employed as a farm labourer. His life was on the land.

Richard Clark who was boarding with him, died late in 1871, aged 83 or 84.

Edward Morgan’s housekeeper and future wife was Caroline Wright. She was born in 1854, the daughter of George Wright and Martha Harris. Her grandfather William Harris was a miller, whose son, also William, followed in his footsteps. William junior is easy to track through the census as he became deaf at the age of 30, and this is recorded on subsequent censuses.

Edward and Caroline had eight children, three of whom had died by 1911, whether in infancy or later we do not know. Their five surviving children were

Edward James Morgan   1871 – 1938

Martha Jane Morgan      1874 –

Sarah Ann Morgan         1877 –

Lewis Morgan                1879 –

Alfred Morgan               1883 -

In 1899, Edward the now aging Lothario died, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. In 1901 we find her in service at Yew Tree Cottage, Clifford. Ten years later, she is living at 15 Prospect Cottages, Hereford Road, Leominster where she kept boarders, and where her granddaughter lived with her. There cannot have been room for many boarders as the house had only four rooms, and in 1911, an elderly lady was the only resident boarder.

It is hard to be certain when Caroline died, but a likely date is 1935, when a Caroline Morgan died in Leominster in the 3^rd quarter of the year.

Kilvert thought that Caroline, staunchly loyal, clean, house-proud, modest and somewhat melancholy would make Edward Morgan a good wife. We do not know, and cannot tell. But the marriage certainly lasted until his death, enduring nearly thirty years. And five children grew to adulthood under her care.

Kilvert was ever the romantic, and in the domestic idyll he describes at Cwmpelved Green he clearly saw something that he liked, maybe something that he himself longed for. He sensed some magic, and put it down to Caroline. Whether his predictions were right we will never know.

(This piece was first published in the Journal of the Kilvert Society.)