Eluned Morgan (author)

Eluned Morgan (20 March 1870 – 29 December 1938), was a Welsh-language author from Patagonia.

Born aboard the ship Myfanwy en route from Britain to Patagonia in South America, she was the daughter of Lewis Jones who gave his name to the city of Trelew, in Chubut, Argentina. She was partly educated in Wales, and worked for a time in Cardiff Central Library until her final return to Patagonia in 1918.

She was sent by her father, Lewis Jones, from Patagonia to be educated at Dr Williams school in Dolgellau. In the Welsh colony in Patagonia, education was through the medium of Welsh, however, in Wales, Welsh was forbidden due to the policies and attitudes known as the Welsh Not. Eluned arrived in Wales speaking Welsh and Spanish and very little, if any, English. Winnie Ellis, sister of the Meirioneth MP, T.E. Ellis, who would translate for her from English, recalls her as 'walking like a prince' and that she stood out with her dark skin and eyes. Upon arriving at the school she led a procession out of the class in protest at the Welsh Not policies and attitude of the school. The despute was only settled when Michael D. Jones, the founder of the Welsh colony in Patagonia, traveled from Bala to mediate.

She wrote numerous articles on Y Wladfa (the Welsh Settlement in Patagonia) for Welsh periodicals such as Cymru, edited by Owen Morgan Edwards, but is chiefly remembered for her two travel books, Dringo'r Andes (1904), about a journey across country from the Welsh Settlement to the Andes, and Gwymon y Môr (1909), about a sea voyage from Britain to Patagonia. She also wrote a book on the history of the Incas, Plant yr Haul (1915).

Morgan wrote 'Dringo'r Andes', an account of early Welsh life in the Patagonian settlement including accounts of the relations between the Welsh,and the Native Americans (which were good on the whole), the ruling Spaniards, and the immigrant Italians. ^[1]

Books

• Dringo'r Andes (1. Y Brodyr Owen, Abergavenny, 1904; 2. Southall & Co., Newport, 1907; 3. Southall & Co., 1909; 4. Southall & Co., 1917; 5. Southall & Co. n.d.)
• Gwymon y Môr (Y Brodyr Owen, Abergavenny, 1909)
• Ar Dir a Môr (Y Brodyr Owen, Abergavenny, 1913)
• Plant yr Haul (1. Evans & Williams, Cardiff, 1915; 2. Southall & Co., 1921; 3. Southall & Co., 1926)

Further reading

• R. Bryn Williams (ed.), Eluned Morgan[:] Bywgraffiad a Detholiad (Clwb Llyfrau Cymraeg, 1948). Edited selection of her work plus lengthy biography.
• Meic Stephens (ed.), Companion to the Literature of Wales (University of Wales Press).
• E. Wyn James, ‘Plentyn y Môr: Eluned Morgan a’i Llyfrau Taith’, Taliesin, 148 (2013), 66–81. ISSN 0049-2884.
• E. Wyn James, ‘Eluned Morgan and the "Children of the Sun" ’, in Los Galeses en la Patagonia VI, ed. Marcelo Gavirati & Fernando Coronato (Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina: Asociación Punta Cuevas, Asociación Cultural Galesa de Puerto Madryn & Centro de Estudios Históricos y Sociales de Puerto Madryn, 2014), 249–65. ISBN 978-987-24577-5-4.
• Siôn T. Jobbins, 'The Phenomenon of Welshness II – is Wales too Poor to be Independent' (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, 2013), chapter on 'Eluned Morgan, Patagonia' ISBN 9781845274658

References