Portrait of Thomas Morgan
Current rights
Public Domain
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Object detail
About this object
Bust portrait of Thomas Morgan, Headmaster of Napier Main School [also known as Napier District School]. The photograph is likely to have been taken in the late nineteenth century.
The sitter is posed against a neutral backdrop. His gaze is directed towards the camera.
The sitter is posed against a neutral backdrop. His gaze is directed towards the camera.
Production period
Production technique
Media/Materials description
Black and white cabinet photograph placed in an album with a leather cover and metal clasp. The photograph has been removed from its card backing.
Media/Materials
Measurements
Height x Width: 143 x 102mm
Classification terms
Subject person
Subject period
Current rights
Credit Line
from the estate of Peggy Higgins
Other number(s)
m2003/75, Album 62, 12334, 81147
Public comments
I have this photo too. Thomas was my x4 great uncle and came from Newchurch just outside Carmarthen Wales b in 1849. Son of a carpenter he trained as a teacher and emigrated abt 1885 with his sister Elizabeth and his younger brother Morgan. They lived on Clyde Road Napier. There are some fascinating newspaper articles https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19040525.2.14 about his early years teaching in first in Gisbourne then Napier. Wales exported it’s brightest sons and daughters to England and beyond, there was little work at home for the educated children of the working classes, and universal education has meant that there, at last, was a way out of the cycle of poverty. One problem with the English education system in Wales was that children were not allowed to speak Welsh in school or even have a Welsh first name. This was a deliberate anglicisation of Wales by English ruling class, afraid of revolution, instigated by an oppressed underclass and believing a language of their own made it harder to infiltrate and control the Welsh. In the family, he is reputed to have started Napier rugby club, and taught the pupils the rules when he was headmaster. I don't know if you have any more information about that? Tom and Morgan died New Zealand in around 1920, when their estate totaled £8000, a fortune if you consider a bank manager with a staff of 20 earned about £250 per year. However, Elizabeth turned that money into £11,100 by the time she died in the early 1930’s. Money and artefacts finally returned to Wales in 1944, sending a significant financial legacy to 12 of their family, a Maori bible and a couple of pictures of New Zealand came too. I do have more photos if you are interested? I'm halfway through writing my second novel about the family and it features Thomas's early years in Wales including life in the training colleges established to improve the quality of teacher training.
- Sarah Smith posted 3 years ago.