Sir Thomas Morgan, 1st Baronet

Major-General Sir Thomas Morgan, 1st Baronet (1604 – 13 April 1679) was a Welsh soldier during the English Civil War, and Commander-in-Chief in Scotland during the Restoration.[1]

Major-General Sir Thomas Morgan

Biography

Morgan was born in Wales. At 16, having at that time little knowledge of any language but Welsh, Morgan enlisted in Sir Horace Vere's Protestant volunteer expedition which fought in the Thirty Years' War. Morgan fought in the Low Countries and in particular assisted the Dutch in the decisive victory at the battle of the Slaak in 1631.

He fought under Thomas Fairfax in the English Civil War. In 1645 he was appointed parliamentary governor of Gloucester. In 1646 he took Chepstow Castle and Monmouth, and besieged Raglan Castle. From 1651 to 1657 he assisted General George Monck in Scotland and was promoted to major-general. He was second in command in Flanders in 1657 and knighted on his return in 1658. He rejoined Monck in Scotland, and played a conspicuous part in the Restoration in Edinburgh. His Scottish command was disbanded in December, but he was rewarded with a baronetcy on 1 February 1661.[2]

Morgan established the English Expedition to Portugal to help the Portuguese fight the Spanish. He was appointed Governor of Jersey in 1665 repairing the Jersey forts and reorganising the militia.[2]

A pamphlet narrating his acts in France and Flanders in 1657 and 1658, said to be by himself was published in 1699.[2]

His family home was the Old Court at Llangattock Lingoed, Monmouthshire.[3]

Notes

1. Plant 2006.
2. Lee 1903, p. 903.
3. Good Stuff (5 June 1952). "Old Court including Former Cider House, Granary and Stable Range - Grosmont - Monmouthshire - Wales". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 26 February 2017.

References

• Plant, David (22 September 2006), Sir Thomas Morgan, 1604-79, the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1903). "Morgan, Thomas (d.1679)". Index and Epitome. Dictionary of National Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 903.

Further reading

• Firth, Charles Harding (1894). "Morgan, Thomas (d.1679)" . Dictionary of National Biography. 39. pp. 33–35.
• Dodd, Arthur Herbert (2009). "The biography of Sir Thomas Morgan, 1st Baronet". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 15 November 2013.