ON NOVEMBER 11, 1918, the guns fell silent and the First World War reached its conclusion. The war impacted on every family, and the Morgans of Tredegar House were no exception.
At the start of the war, Courtenay Morgan, Lord Tredegar, immediately offered his luxury steam ship ‘The Liberty’ to the Admiralty.
He paid for it to be fitted out as a hospital ship and provided a crew, and even commanded it himself for a short time.
He then became chief Naval recruiting officer for the Welsh district in November 1915. He embarked on recruitment tours of Wales and was responsible for recruiting more than 2,000 men in South Wales and Monmouthshire.
Courtenay Morgan and his son, Evan
Towards the end of the war, Gwyneth Morgan, Courtenay’s daughter, signed up for the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wrens) in 1918 as an admiralty driver.
Never in the best of health, she spent several months on sick leave and was discharged a few days before the war ended.
Though life went on at Tredegar House during the war years, many estate workers went off to fight. One such was John (Jack) Evans.
He was a groom at Tredegar House when he joined the Royal Gloucester Hussars.
He was captured by the Turks in 1916 in Egypt and there are harrowing accounts of his treatment as a prisoner of war.
On his return, he resumed his job as a groom and, in 1923, became chauffeur.
However, the Morgan family themselves were not left untouched by the war.
Lt Charles Morgan Hoare, 15th Kings Hussars, son of Violet Hoare, Lord Tredegar’s sister, lost his life at Mons. Four of Lord Tredegar’s other nephews were also killed in action.
During the Second World War, the Tredegar Estate itself became part of the military effort, with troops camped at both Tredegar Park and Ruperra Castle.
On December 6, 1941, Ruperra was destroyed by fire. No-one was killed, but one man was seriously injured when he found himself trapped by flames and was forced to jump from a third-floor window.
Evan Morgan, Courtenay’s son and fourth Lord Tredegar, was commissioned into the Royal Signals and was involved in a scheme to drop messages into enemy territory by carrier pigeon.
However, he was court martialled, supposedly for revealing secret information to a group of Girl Guides who were visiting his department.
Severely reprimanded, Evan resigned on medical grounds in 1943.
He spent time as honorary colonel in the local Home Guard and was Military Social Welfare Officer for Monmouthshire.
Evan’s second wife, Princess Olga Dolgarouky, was also involved in the war effort. She trained as a nurse and cared for patients at the Royal Gwent Hospital.
Evan and Olga at a wartime lunch
She also collected donations for anti-aircraft personnel and fundraised for wartime causes. She later worked for a munitions company in London.
In the late spring of 1944, the roads surrounding Tredegar Park were full of tanks, guns and lorries, while ships destined for the Normandy landings packed the docks.
Many of the Tredegar Estate’s temporary residents left forever that June, and sadly, it is unknown how many survived the D-Day landings.
It is in honour of the men and women who gave their lives, and of those who survived and suffered in silence, that we remember them each year on the anniversary of the day that the guns fell silent on the Western Front.
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