David Morgan (abt. 1810 - 1896)

Born about 1810 in England, UK

Husband of Christian (Pople) Morgan — married 23 May 1833 in Saint Martin In The Fields,Westminster,London,England

Died 17 Jul 1896 at about age 86 in North Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Biography

DAVID MORGAN (Morgan-10507)

BIRTH. Abt 1810 (from burial)

MARRIAGE. 23 May 1833, Christian (Pople) Moffett, Saint Martin In The Fields,Westminster,London,England

MARRIAGE. 23 May 1833

Name David Morgan

Spouse's Name Christian Moffett

Event Date 23 May 1833

Event Place Saint Martin In The Fields,Westminster,London,England

Children (possible):

(1) David Morgan, b. abt 1834, England d. Jan 1887, Wallaroo, SA.

DEATH.

Surname MORGAN

Given Names David

Cemetery Wallaroo Cemetery

Section Church of England

Plot/Grave/Niche 24

Last Residence Wallaroo SA 5556

Age at Death 53 yrs

Date of Burial 14/01/1887

Minister Officiating Rev R Keeley

http://www.coppercoast.sa.gov.au/page.aspx?u=1656&c=5389

(2) William Morgan, b. bef. 1837, England, d.

IMMIGRATION. LADY EMMA (136/243 t brq 1823, fmrly HMS Philomel ) arrived in SA 4 Dec 1837 from London, Captain John Witherden Hurst]

IMMIGRATION OF FAMILY. ORLEANA 1840, departed London 29 Feb 1840 via The Downs with Captain Alex. Cameron and 259 passengers, arrived Port Adelaide 10 June 1840

MOFFETT Priscilla

MOFFETT Selina

MORGAN, David and wife Christian / Christina MOFFATT / MOFFETT nee POPLE,

MORGAN, 2 children (including David, William Webster?)

MORGAN, daughters Priscilla, Selina, Amelia, daughter (1st husband)

MORGAN William

https://bound-for-south-australia.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/1840Orleana.htm

(1892) OLDEN TIMES. DAVID MORGAN'S REMINISCENCES. In the Cottage Homes, which our philanthropists have provided at Kingston-terrace, North Adelaide, for the aged and infirm, resides an an old identity named David Morgan, who is one of the few personages that now link the present with the distant past.

Mr. Morgan was with Colonel Light in the first surveys of the City of Adelaide, joined the first Police Force in South Australia, went down to the Murray mouth with Captain Sturt, and subsequently into the interior with the same heroic explorer, formed one of the gold escort from the Victorian diggings, and in after years served again in the police, and as a Warder in our gaols.

A chat with this veteran colonist is interesting just now, seeing there is a movement for the erection of a new monument to Colonel Light, first Surreyor General of South Australia.

Mr. Morgan occupies one of Lady Ayers's cottages and from his dwelling he looks out upon a tree which he planted years ago in memory of the lady after whom his habitation is named.

The old man was reading the Register when our representative looked in to see him on Wednesday afternoon, he keeps himself thoroughly in touch with the news, never missing a day in perusing his morning paper. Most of his time is spent in reading, next to the newspapers historical books are his fancy.

'Dave' Morgan's domicile is a picture of neatness and comfort, with a place for everything, and every thing in its place — his discipline in the navy would never allow him to have things untidy. Though eighty-three years of age he is independent of assistance in domestic duties, is remarkably active, and has an almost un broken memory of the events of the past.

He is stocked full of colonial history, and has a quaint vein of description, invested occasionally with a good deal of humour. We may as well let Mr. Morgan tell his own experiences:

— I came to South Australia in the ship Lady Emma, Captain Hurst, in December, 1837. Dr. Mayo, of Adelaide, was our doctor. But before this I was in the navy. I was on H.M. ships Aclare, Blanche, and Volage on the South American station, under Captain Sir Thomas Bouchier. 'In active service ?'

'Never in a battle, but I saw the last of the Spaniards driven by the Peruvians out of Callao, in the time of General Bolivar.'

'And when you came to the colony you joined Colonel Light?'

'Yes, I was one of his chainmen. There were besides, W. Hedges (still alive, I believe), Bell, Stuckey, and Billy Cooper (a sealer from Kangaroo Island).

Colonel Light lived in a reed hut on the park lands near the site of the gaol, and with him were George Penton, Dawes, and Jack Thorne, who came out with Colonel Light in the Rapid. These four lived together in the hut, and the rest of us had tents.'

'What was Adelaide like then?'

'Just picture to yourself a lot of huts built of reeds growing in the Torrens. The reeds grew 12 ft. high, and more. Colonel Light and Commissioner Fisher had reed huts close to each other. There were two rows (Coromandel-row and Buffalo-row), and where the Exchange Hotel now stands — Payne's Acre — I remember there was a gumtree 4 ft. through, but there were lots of these big trees about.

The banks of the River Torrens were beautifully wooded with gums. The gums and peppermint grew in King William-street. I have seen kangaroo grass growing there, and the place was all beautifully timbered like an English park. Kangaroos were very plentiful in the forest like place then. We were not working every day, sometimes we would have a spell and walk out to get some kangaroos. I remember well Billy Cooper's dogs going after them, and we used to bring in the tails and sell them at a shilling a pound.

There were not many houses in those times. We used to knock up shanties with broad palings and shingle roofs. As soon as we got bricks at Hindmarsh we began to build substantial houses,'

'You would not like those rough times again ?'

'Oh, I would not mind if I had youth on my side. We were all quite happy and jolly enough. We had health and strength and good will and hard work, and made the best of everything.'

'What was the cause of Colonel Light's death?

It was said he was broken-hearted. You know his reed house with all his papers was burnt down. The fire took place in the afternoon, I think, when he was out of town. A spark, or something of the kind, must have caught the reeds of the hub. I remember he had two large volumes labelled ' The Life of Billy Light.' These were his manuscript, which he no doubt would have published if they had been preserved and he had not died. He was indeed a grand fellow, a perfect gentleman, and I shall never forget his kindness to me.'

'Some doubt has been expressed as to the body having been buried in Light-square.'

'Well, there ought not to be the slightest doubt. Mr. Thorpe, whose name I have mentioned and who is living at Brighton, went to the funeral. He helped to put the body in the coffin,and he cut off some of Colonel Light's hair ; some of it he has preserved to this day. There were railings first round the grave in Light-square, and the late Sir George Kingston was the architect for the monument that is there now. All of us subscribed something to it.

I was in England when Colonel Light died, having gone home to bring out my wife and family. I remember him saying to me when I left— 'Well, Dave, if you return alive you shall never want a friend.' I went with Colonel Light out of the survey service when he resigned.'

As the conversation went on Mr. Morgan related how that he was one of the first police troopers in Adelaide. 'There were five of us,' he said — 'Harry Alford, whose funeral I attended last Monday ; Jack Pollard, Dave Morgan, Bernard Shaw (still living, I am told, in the colony), and Morrison. Captain Inman was Commissioner and Captain Bull was, I think, assistant. You might like to know also that I was acting orderly to the Acting Governor, Mr. G. M. Stephen, and on the arrival of Governor Gawler, whom I met at Holdfast Bay, I was appointed orderly to him. A man named Lyons was, I believe, the first foot constable.'

Then the reporter enquired as to his connection with the Sturt Expedition, which went out from Adelaide in August, 1844, by order of the Imperial authorities to explore and, if possible, reach the centre of the continent.

There are only two or three survivors of the sixteen comprising that memorable expedition. Captain Sturt was leader; Dr. John Harris Browne, of North Adelaide, who frequently, in company with his daughter, calls to see David Morgan, was the surgeon ; and David had charge of the horses. J. McDouall Stuart, who afterwards rose to fame in his exploration of Australia, was draughtsman of the party ; Louis Piesse, storekeeper ; Daniel Brock, collector ; Robert Flood, stock man ; and George Davenport and Joseph Cowley, servants ; while Henry Foulkes, John Jones, Turpin, William Lewis (a sailor), and John Mach drove the bullocks, and John Kirby looked after the sheep.

It is not necessary to go into the work of this expedition, except to give the few remarks of the octogenarian :

— 'Our camp after leaving Adelaide was at Moorundie on the Murray, where Mr. Eyre, the explorer, was Protector of Aborigines, We were out about fifteen months. There was not a station above Moorundi when we went up the Murray, but when we came down there were three.

Mr. Stuart, Cowley, Davenport, Piesse, and I were messmates in the same tent on this expedition; the other hands were under the drays with tarpaulins over them. Dr. Browne and I, you know, were shipmates in the Orleana when I came to the colony the second time. Mr. Eyre and Cusack, the constable ab Moorundie, went as far as Lake Victoria with us, and before he struck off to leave us I remember shodding Eyre's horses for him.

The expedition went up the Murray and Darling rivers, and struck off to the Barrier country, which Captain Sturt named. We were the first white men who ever saw that land where Broken Hill is now."

Incidentally the newspaper man happened to mention the Elder Expedition, led into the interior by Mr. David Lindsay. The old explorer brightened up immediately. His eyes flashed, and with a smile he said— 'Yes, I have read the doings of Mr. Lindsay's expedition with the greatest interest, and sympathize with him and his party. It is only those who have been through such journeys who know what it is to be short of water. We were six months at one waterhole. That was where poor Mr. Poole, Captain Sturt's assistant, died. I think Mr. Lindsay did the only thing open to him, to bring his party and camels safely out of the desert as he did. He had the life of his men and cattle to look after.

Following upon his return with Captain Sturt Mr. Morgan went to cart copper ore from the Burra Burra Mines to Port Adelaide. In 1850 he was on the Californian gold diggings, and we next find him driving the escort led by Inspector Lamb from Adelaide to the Victorian goldfields and back. One journey sufficed for the old surveyor, explorer, and gold-digger.

'I had my arm going like a fiddler's elbow— the hardest work I ever did — every day driving the horses. This was in 1853, and the horses were so worn out that the men had to dismount in the Ninety-Mile Desert and walk, leading their horses. I came into Adelaide a week later with a beaten team.'

Mr. Morgan could not remember the names of the escort. 'They used to change about so much,' he said; 'rarely you would find the same men in more than one escort.'

After this the ex-police trooper was engaged by the late Mr. C. S. Hare, who was then at , the head of the Convict Department. On one occasion he was on guard with a loaded musket at the outer gate of the Stockade.' The time for closing the gates was drawing near, and a tremendous duststorm was blowing. Three prisoners — Grace, Giblin, and another — were carrying coal from the front of the Stockade into the back, and in the thick dust these fellows crawled along the fence, when they didn't think I was looking, and bolted. I fired, and out rushed the turnkeys, chased and caught them.'

'Many prisoners then?'

'I think there were about seventy. When Mr. Ashton, the Governor of the Gaol, died Mr. Tolmer took charge, and through the late Inspector Tolmer I got back into the Police Force again. I was a trooper for seven years and was stationed for some time at Wellington. From there I resigned, and was afterwards Warder at Redruth Gaol, and then shifted to Wallaroo, where my wife died.'

'How long have you been in the Homes?' 'About ten years.'

Questioned as to his health, he said, ' My Lodge doctor comes to see me now and again.'

'You belong to the Friendly Societies?'

'Yes, I was one of the early members of the Adelaide Lodge of Oddfellows, Manchester Unity.'

'You might like to know,' continued the venerable colonist, ' that I had a brother dead now — who was with Captain Tolmer. He assisted him on one occasion in the capture of three convicts who got aboard a whaler, and when off Kangaroo Island took one of the ship's boats and rowed away to the mainland. The men were captured somewhere on Yorke's Peninsula I believe, and were sent back to Van Diemen's Land, and there hung.'

The old pioneer had a lot more to relate concerning the old days. One incident was connected with his narrow escape from being shot by a blackfellow at Point Macleay while Morgan was about to arrest another aboriginal for stealing flour from a neighbouring station, and had it not been for the sudden appearance on the scene of the late Mr. Taplin, then protector of the natives at the lakes, either the police trooper or the black, who was in the act of firing, would have been killed as dead as a hammer.

It may be interesting, if only from an historical point of view, to know that Morgan purchased land at an early date on the Brighton Plains. 'I had ten acres,' he said. 'Bob Anderson was my neighbour there, and we were the first to break up land in that part of the colony.'

DEATH (1896). MORGAN.—On the 17th July, at the residence of F. H. Catchlove, at Molesworth-street, North Adelaide, David Morgan, aged 87 years.

BURIAL. 18 Jul 1896, West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaids

Name: Morgan, David

Date of Death: 17 July 1896

Age: 86 Years

Last Abode: NORTH ADELAIDE

Service Type: Burial

Cemetery: West Terrace Cemetery

Section: Plan Z

Path Number: G

E/W: W

Site Number: 1A

Grant expiry date: 18 July 1995

Photo: David Morgan's Grave West Terrace Cemetery SA. Category: Headstone. Description: David Morgan. Second husband of Christian Moffatt nee Pople

OBITUARY. THE LATE MR. DAVID MORGAN. Another old colonist in the person of Mr. David Morgan passed away at Mr. Catchlove's private residence, North Adelaide, on Thursday morning.

The deceased gentleman assisted the late Colonel Light to survey Adelaide in 1837, and was also out with Captain Sturt in 1844 helping to explore the Barrier Rtanges and Coopers Creole country, then known as Sturt's Stony Desert.

He was for some time employed in the mounted police, and was one of those who acted as the first escort to Victoria in 1852.

Mr. and Mrs, Catchlove deserve the thanks of the community for helping the old pioneer to live happily during the last few years of his life.

David Morgan came out,to South Australia in the Lady Emma, Captain Hurst, in December,1837; and it is interesting to remember that the late Dr. Mayo, who was so highly esteemed hero, was medical officer of that ship.

The deceased was formerly in the navy, and served on Her Majesty's ships Aclare, Blanche, and Volage on the South American station under Captain Sir Thomas Bouchier. He was never in battle, but he saw the last of the Spaniards driven by the Peruvians out of Callao in the time of General Bolivar.

When he arrived in the colony he joined Colonel Light as one of his chainmen. There were besides Messrs. W. Kedges, Bell, Stuckey, and Billy Cooper, a sealer from Kangaroo Island. At the time Morgan joined him Colonel Light was living in a mud hut on the Park Lands, near the site of the Gaol, and with him were George Penton, Dawes, and Jack Thorne, who came out with Colonel Light in the Rapid.

Morgan was one of Sturt's Expedition which went out from Adelaide in August, 1844, to explore and if possible reach the centre of the continent. John McDouall Stuart, who subsequently succeeded in crossing the continent, was draftsman of that party.

Stuart, Cowley, Davenport, Piesse, and Morgan were messmates in the same tent on Sturt's expedition. The expedition went up the Murray and Darling Rivers, and struck off to the Barrier, which Sturt narucd. They were the first white men who ever saw that land where the town of Broken Hill now stands.

On his return with Captain Sturt, Mr. Morgan went to cart copper ore for the Burra Mines to Port Adelaide. In 1850 he was on the Victorian gold diggings, and afterwards was driving the escort, led by Inspector Lamb, from Adelaide to the Victorian Goldfields and back. Then he was engaged by the late Mr. C. S. Hare, who was then the head of the convict department.

Sources

• Marriage: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NJBM-MXT

• DAVID MORGAN'S REMINISCENCES (1892): South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900) 26 Feb 1892, p6 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/48215267

• Death Notice: The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931) 17 Jul 1896, p4 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/34553197

• Burial: http://bit.ly/1IqOP5R

• Obituary: Adelaide Observer (SA : 1843 - 1904) 18 Jul 1896, p28 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/162359261