Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar

Evan Frederic Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar FRHortS FRSL FRSA FAGS FIL FZS (13 July 1893 – 27 April 1949) was a Welsh poet and author. On 3 March 1934, he succeeded to the title of 6th Baronet Morgan, 4th Baron Tredegar, and 2nd Viscount Tredegar, after the death of his father.

Life

The son of Courtenay Morgan, 1st Viscount Tredegar, of Tredegar Park, Monmouthshire, Wales and Lady Katharine Carnegie, the 13th Duke of Bedford described the Tredegar family as "the oddest family I have ever met".

The 2nd Viscount was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford University. A Roman Catholic convert, he was a Chamberlain of the Sword and Cape to Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI. An accomplished occultist, he was hailed by Aleister Crowley as Adept of Adepts.

He fought in the First World War, gaining the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the Welsh Guards. During the Second World War with MI8, his responsibility was to monitor carrier pigeons. He carelessly let slip on occasion departmental secrets to two girl guides and was court martialed but not sent to jail or worse.

In 1929, he stood as the Conservative Party candidate for Limehouse.

Morgan provided inspiration for the characters of Ivor Lombard in Aldous Huxley's 1921 Crome Yellow, and for Eddie Monteith in Ronald Firbank's The Flower Beneath the Foot.

He was decorated with the following awards:

• Knight of Honour and Devotion, Sovereign and Military Order of Malta
• Knight of Justice, Constantinian Order of St. George
• Knight of Justice, Order of St. John of Jerusalem (KJStJ)
• Commander, Order of the Holy Sepulchre (with star)

• Russell, John Robert, Duke of Bedford, A Silver Plated Spoon, Cassell, London 1959, pp. 64-65
• Phil Carradice. "Wales History: Evan Morgan of Tredegar House". BBC. Retrieved 2016-11-21. 
• Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh; Sykes, Christopher Simon (1994). Great Houses of England & Wales. London: King. p. 209. ISBN 1856690539. Retrieved 5 January 2017. 
• ^ "Evan Morgan of Tredegar House". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2016. 
• Rintoul, M. C. (1993). Dictionary of real people and places in fiction. London: Routledge. p. 686. ISBN 0-415-05999-2. Retrieved 5 January 2017. 

Marriages

Despite his known homosexuality, he married twice.

• Lois Ina Sturt (1900–1937), an actress and daughter of Humphrey Napier Sturt, 2nd Baron Alington of Crichel and Lady Feodorowna Yorke, on 1 April 1928. She died in 1937.
• Princess Olga Sergeivna Dolgorouky (1915–1998), daughter of General Prince Serge Alexandrovitch Dolgorouky and Irina Vassilievna Narishkina, on 13 March 1939; this union was annulled in 1943.

• D.J. Taylor, "Bright Young People", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, page 232
• ^

Death

He died on 27 April 1949 at age 55, without issue. Upon his death, for lack of a male heir, his viscountancy became extinct. His mother died in London in 1949, only a few months later

Works

• Fragments
• Gold and Ochre
• At Dawn
• The Eel
• The City of Canals