Author: MORGAN, Mary
Biography:
by
Jackson, Heather (HJ)
MORGAN, Mary, formerly GIBBS (1749-1808: findmypast.com)
Thanks to the recent digital edition of Mary, the Osier-peeler (1798) by Emily D. Spunaugle, it is now possible to identify the author not only of that work but also of the pseudo-archaic Knyghte of the Golden Locks (1799). As "editor" of the latter, Mary Morgan declared that the poem was not in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and that she "sincerely" believed "it to be original, and never before in print." That does not mean that she did not write it herself. Mary is an appeal for charity based on a real-life case of hardship in rural Cambridgeshire. Both poems were published in Wisbech, where Mary Morgan's husband was vicar from 1795 to 1802. She had also published A Tour to Milford Haven, in 1791 (1795), about a journey to her husband's native country of Wales. Mary was born in Suffolk: Spunaugle gives the birthplace as Ipswich and the parents as Joseph and Mary Gibbs, Joseph being a celebrated organist and composer (1699-1788). No public record of baptism has been found for corroboration but she may well be correct. On 22 Apr. 1776 Mary Gibbs married the Rev. Caesar Morgan at St. Nicholas's, Ipswich. He was granted the degree of DD in 1793 and held various livings over the years, most of them in Cambridgeshire near Ely, the last being Stretham or Streatham (1802-12). He was a prebendary of Ely from 1781 onwards. The marriage appears to have been childless. Mary Morgan was buried at Ely Cathedral on 23 Jul. 1808, followed by her husband, who died on 10 Jan. 1812. (Emily D. Spunaugle, ed., Mary, the Osier-Peeler, Romantic Circles Oct. 2021 [romantic-circles.org]; findmypast.com 4 Feb. 2026; ancestry.com 4 Feb. 2026; ACAD; CCEd 4 Feb. 2026; "Gibbs, Joseph," ODNB 4 Feb. 2026) HJ