Author: Morgan, John Minter
Biography:
MORGAN, John Minter (1782-1854: ODNB)
He was born in London and baptised at St. Bride’s, Fleet St. (not Westminster) on 19 June 1782, the eldest son of a wealthy London stationer, John Morgan (1751-1807) and his wife Biddy (not Dorothy; birth surname not found; died 1823). The details of his education are not known but he certainly had a good classical education and some modern languages. He never married. After receiving the Freedom of the City of London by patrimony in 1803 and inheriting a fortune in 1807 he dedicated—as GM expresses it—“pen and purse” to the philanthropic causes he most strongly believed in. Founded on the works of Robert Owen (1771-1858), his writings advocate social reform to alleviate “the misery of the poor” by the promotion of cooperative enterprise and educational reform, integrating socialist and Christian teachings. Nearly all his works are prose arguments, from The Revolt of the Bees (1826) and Hampden in the Nineteenth Century (1834) to The Christian Commonwealth (1845) and beyond. The Reproof of Brutus (1830) is anomalous in its choice of verse as a medium, but there is a long prose preface and an interesting section on the role of poetry, past and present, as a visionary source of inspiration for social change. In it Morgan cites contemporary poets—in some cases still living—as examples, Shelley, Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge (qq.v.) among them. Morgan was a founder member of the London Co-operative Society (1824) and funded its magazine. Besides personal philanthropy, he raised large sums of money for his causes. In 1842 he petitioned parliament for the establishment of a “Church of England Agricultural Self-Supporting Institution” which attracted support but not sufficient financial backing. Near his country home on Ham Common, he established a “National Orphan Home” for girls in 1849. In the 1851 Census, from his bachelor residence in Mayfair, he gave his occupation as “No Profession or Occupation.” He died of “paralysis” in London on 26 Dec. 1854 and was buried in St. Andrew’s Church on Ham Common on 3 Jan. 1855. His will left numerous charitable bequests and £12,000 in trust for his sister and her children. (ODNB 12 July 2023; ancestry.com 12 July 2023; findmypast.com 12 July 2023; GM Apr. 1855, 430-1)