Welsh Journals

The Revd Richard Williams Morgan of Tregynon and his writings PETER FREEMAN Many Welsh Tractarians looked back nostalgically to the primitive British Church which existed prior to the arrival of St Augustine, and which remained undefiled by Romish and Papal corruptions. Many praised the Reformation for having got rid of some of the grosser accretions. The early British Church was seen as 'pure', until defiled by Rome after the Norman Conquest, and until 'cleansed' by the Reformation, when it reverted to what it had been before, and owed no allegiance to Rome. The Welsh Tractarians were not anti- Catholic, but were anti-Papal and anti-Roman which they saw as corrupt. There had been a tradition that St Paul or Joseph of Arimathea had landed in Britain, long before St Augustine. Such traditions were still written about at this time. The Revd R. W. Morgan, curate of Mochdre, Montgomeryshire, from 1842 to 1853, and perpetual curate of Tregynon until 1862, also believed in the foundation of Glastonbury by Joseph of Arimathea, the conversion of Bran and Caradoc by St Paul, and the visit of the latter to Britain. The Revd Richard Williams Morgan (c. 1815-89) was the nephew of John Williams, the Archdeacon of Cardigan and was educated at St David's College, Lampeter. He clashed on a number of occasions with the bishop of St Asaph over Morgan's support for an increase in the number of Welsh-speaking clergymen and criticised Dr Vowler Short for not being able to speak Welsh. He was accused by his former housekeeper of improper relations with her, although such allegations were not proved. He was a 'stormy petrel' who was not afraid of speaking his mind, and this trait may have contributed to his lack of promotion in the diocese. He was a prolific writer, and had the temerity to enquire of the Archbishop of Canterbury of the possibility of his being awarded a Lambeth Doctor of Divinity for his writings. He was a leading figure at eisteddfodau, and had the bardic name of 'Mor Merion'. Like many other Welsh Tractarians he was a Welsh patriot. Viscount Fielding's conversion to Roman Catholicism (he was heir to the Earl of Denbigh) came as a great shock, and helped to strengthen the opinion among Tractarians as well as the Broad and Evangelical clergy that the Roman Catholic Church was treacherous and untrustworthy. In 1850, he presided over a meeting at Freemasons' Hall, London, on education, when he stated that: I have heard with pain some allusion to separation as a possible contingent should the State proceed to further aggressions. That, I admit, might justify us in seeking relief from the trammels of the State. Secession from the Church is quite another