Author: Morgan, Thomas Charles
Biography:
MORGAN, Thomas Charles (1780-1843: ODNB)
Pseudonym Humphry Oldcastle
Morgan’s authorship of the pseudonymous Royal Progress (1821) is attested to by the ms note written by his wife Sydney Owenson (q.v.) on the title-page of the BL copy; their joint authorship of The Mohawks (1822) is less certain but a long review in Blackwood’s 11 (June 1822) 696-7 made the connection, which has been generally accepted. Morgan was baptised in London on 30 Aug. 1780, the son of John and Mary Morgan of Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury. (She may have been Mary Emmett, who married a John Morgan at St. Marylebone, London, on 18 Aug. 1776.) He was educated at Eton and Charterhouse, went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge (matric. 1798, MB 1804, MD 1806), and established a medical practice on Charlotte Street. In 1810 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. On 13 May (not April) 1805 he married a Miss Hammond (first name not certain), eldest daughter of William Hammond of Queen Square, at St. George the Martyr, Queen Square. She died in 1809, leaving one daughter. Morgan accompanied the Marquess of Abercorn to his estate in Ireland as his family physician. There he was knighted (1811) and married Sydney Owenson. As Sir Thomas and Lady Morgan they kept a house in Dublin, with long absences for travel and other activities. He contributed appendices on a variety of social and professional topics to her travel books France (1818) and Italy (1821). His own rationalist publications Sketches of the Philosophy of Life (1818) and Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals (1822) proving controversial, he retired from the practice of medicine but continued to write for periodical and pamphlet publications on literary, philosophical, and political subjects. The cause of Catholic Emancipation was particularly important to him. In 1837 they moved to Lowndes Square, London, where he died on 28 Aug. 1843 after a short illness. The GM obituary paid tribute to him as “an ardent lover of civil and religious liberty.” (ODNB 15 July 2023; findmypast.com 15 July 2023; GM Oct. 1843, 436-7; Star 18 May 1805)