Kenneth O. Morgan


Kenneth Owen Morgan, Baron Morgan, is a Welsh historian and author, known especially for his writings on modern British history and politics and on Welsh history. He is a regular reviewer and broadcaster on radio and television. He has been an influential intellectual resource in the Labour Party.

Life

He grew up in rural Wales and attended Aberdovey Council School in rural Wales, University College School in Hampstead, and Oriel College, Oxford. The first two appealed to him. As for Oxford he recalled, "The disagreeable nature of the undergraduates was matched by the mediocrity of the tutors. They were astonishingly poor.... All in all, Oriel seemed more like a backwoods seminary of mid-Victorian days than a modern educational institution." He had better luck outside his insular college. "On the intellectual side, I attended a variety of lectures which seemed to me brilliant and what I really needed in Oxford, by people like Asa Briggs, Christopher Hill, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and the incomparable and deeply entertaining Alan Taylor." He returned to Oxford for doctoral work, specializing in the role of Wales in British politics in the late 19th century, with a focus on Gladstone. He greatly enjoyed graduate work, taking his DPhil in 1958.
He taught at University of Wales Swansea from 1958 to 1966 and held an ACLS Fellowship at Columbia University, New York in 1962 -63, also teaching there in 1965. He was a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, from 1966 to 1989 and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales from 1989 to 1995. In this capacity, he served as a Welsh Supernumerary Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford from 1991 to 1992. He was principal of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in the 1990s.
In 1983 he was elected Fellow of the British Academy and in 1992 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, and in 2002 of Oriel College. He became a Druid of the Gorsedd of Bards in 2008 and in 2009 received the gold medal from the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion for lifetime achievement. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Politics

Morgan is a member of the Labour Party, and on 12 June 2000 he was made a life peer as Baron Morgan, of Aberdyfi in the County of Gwynedd. He has served on the Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Family

He was married to the historian and criminologist Jane Morgan, who died in 1992; they had two children together, David and Katherine. In 2009 he married Elizabeth Gibson, senior lecturer in law at the universities of Tours and Bordeaux. They have four grandchildren.

Writing

Kenneth Morgan is the author of many works, such as The People's Peace, his notable history of postwar Britain, and has completed biographies of many politicians, including David Lloyd George, Keir Hardie, James Callaghan, and Michael Foot. He is the editor of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, to which he contributed the two final chapters, and which has sold close on a million copies.
He also edited the Welsh History Review from 1961 to 2003. Wales in British Politics, 1868–1922, dealt with the enlarged franchise, the campaign for disestablishment, Home Rule legislation and contrasting attitudes to an imminent World War. Freedom or Sacrilege dealt with contrasting stances on the issue of Welsh church disestablishment but where he came down in favour of the freedom obtained under the latter.

Labour history

In the 1950s to 1970s, labour history was redefined and expanded in focus by a number of historians, amongst whom the most prominent and influential figures were E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. The motivation came from current left-wing politics in Britain and the United States and reached red-hot intensity. Morgan was a more traditional liberal historian who followed the new trends and explains their dynamic:
Morgan sees benefits:
Morgan tells of the downside as well:

Works