< More Waters Upton Memorial Inscriptions / MIs in the churchyard
Waters Upton churchyard MIs: Morgan
IN AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF
SARAH THE BELOVED WIFE OF WILLIAM MORGAN OF WATERS UPTON
who departed this life November 9th 1860
AGED 34 YEARS.
[Illegible]
On the other side of the same chest tomb:
ALSO OF WILLIAM MORGAN,
OF BEFCOTE,
WHO DIED JAN. 2ND 1915,
AGED 85 YEARS.
PEACE, PERFECT PEACE.
The baptism of William Morgan took place at Tibberton on 16 Aug 1829, with parents named as William and Mary Morgan. The 1861 census shows William Morgan, widower, aged 31, farmer of 205 acres, born at Tibberton, residing at Waters Upton with his son William Walter Morgan, age 2, born at Edgmond. By 1871 William had re-married.
THREE CHILDREN OF
John and Elizabeth Morgan of this parish.
ARTHUR, DIED OCTOBER 16TH 1863,
aged 3 years.
SARAH DIED OCTOBER 23RD 1863,
aged 5 years.
GEORGE DIED NOVEMBER 20th 1863,
aged 14 months.
Suffer little children to come unto Me and forbid them
not for such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
The parents of the three Morgan children who died – all from diphtheria – in 1863 were John Morgan, born about 1835 at Llandysilio, Montgomeryshire, and his wife Elizabeth, born about 1831 at Diddlebury, Shropshire. Elizabeth may have been the Elizabeth Carter whose marriage (along with that of a John Morgan) was registered at Ludlow in the December quarter of 1858.
The couple appear on the 1861 census at Waters Upton, with children Sarah (age 2, born at Munslow) and Arthur (written as Authur, 8 months old, born at Waters Upton). John was employed as a farm bailiff at that time. George Morgan, dying in infancy, never appeared on a census, and his parents disappeared from UK census returns after 1861.
An explanation for this is provided by a family tree at Ancestry, which shows John and Elizabeth Morgan living in the USA at Geneva, Ashtabula, Ohio. The 1880 USA census shows the couple with three children born in that state, the birth of the first having taken place in about 1864 (which must have been very soon after John and Elizabeth’s arrival). Records show that John Morgan died at Geneva on 14 Sep 1912.
Added October 2023:
In Loving Memory of
JOHN MORGAN,
Surgeon of Rowton;
Who Died December 20th. 1878
Aged 73 Years.
Also of EMMA,
Relict of the Above,
Who Died October 21st. 1886
Aged 67 Years.
Also of WILLIAM EDWARD,
Youngest Son of the Above,
Who Died March 19th. 1867
Aged 19 Years.
Also of MARY ANN,
Beloved Daughter of the Above,
Who Died May 4th. 1870
Aged 17 Years.
I began the story of John Morgan and his family, in John Morgan, surgeon and apothecary of Waters Upton – Part 1. It is a story I still need to complete, but in the meantime this gravestone provides an ending of sorts. Death notices were printed in the Wellington Journal for William Edward (whose date of death was given as March 20th, not the 19th) on 23 March 1867; for John on 28 December 1878; and for Emma on 30 October 1886.
Memorial inscriptions for John and Emma Morgan’s daughter-in-law Eliza, and for their grandson Robert Blantern Morgan (and Robert’s wife Mary Jane) can also be found in the churchyard of Waters Upton St Michael, and are detailed below.
In Loving Memory of
ELIZA,
The Beloved Wife of
Robert Flower Morgan
of The Hare Butts,
Who Died September 19th. 1893
Aged 47 Years.
“The Lord gave and the Lord
taketh away.”
Eliza Blantern, later Morgan, was born in the Staffordshire parish of High Offley and baptised there on 30 November 1846. She was a daughter of Robert Blantern and of Mary Ann, née Slack, who are also buried at Waters Upton along with two of their children, Eliza’s brother John and sister Mary Ann (see the Blantern Memorial Inscriptions page). The Blanterns had moved to the Harebutts in Waters Upton parish between 1861 and 1871, when the Morgans were living in Waters Upton village.
Robert Flower Morgan, a butcher, wed Eliza Blantern in the second quarter of 1871, possibly at Waters Upton, and the couple settled in nearby Meeson. I suspect that they and their children relocated to the Blantern family home at the Harebutts after the death of Eliza’s father in 1879. There, Robert Flower Morgan continued his trade as a butcher and also took on the Blantern farm.
The National Probate Calendar described Eliza as being of Harebutts Bank. Her will was proved by her husband, her effects being valued at £16. A death notice appeared in the Wellington Journal of 30 September 1893, and an entry in the In Memoriam section of the same newspaper on 24 September 1898.
Robert Flower Morgan of the Harebutts died 2 April 1905 leaving effects valued at £1,910 12s 3d. Probate was granted to his sons Robert Blantern Morgan (see below) and John Stanley Morgan, both butchers.
In Loving Memory of
Robert Blantern Morgan,
of the Harebutts;
who died Augt. 5th 1918, Aged 45 Years.
“Thy will be done.”
Also of
Mary Jane Morgan,
His Beloved Wife,
Who Died Augt. 5th. 1961.
“Re – United.”
Robert Blantern Morgan was a son of Robert Flower Morgan, a butcher and farmer, and of Eliza Morgan, née Blantern (see above). Although he was born in the parish of Bolas Magna (his birth was registered in the first quarter of 1873), by the time of the 1881 census he and his family were living at Harebutts Bank in the neighbouring parish of Waters Upton. There the family remained, being enumerated at that place in 1891 (when Robert was a butcher and farm assistant) and 1901 (when all the Blantern men were recorded as “butcher and farmer”).
I have yet to find Robert on the 1911 census, but in the second quarter of 1913 his marriage to Mary Jane Evans was registered at Wellington and may have taken place at Waters Upton. A little over five years later, Robert was dead. His entry in the National Probate Calendar shows that his death took place at the County Lunatic Asylum, Bicton (and that administration of his estate, with effects valued at £1,844 2s 8d, was granted to his widow.
Mary Jane Evans was born on 22 November 1872 at Minsterley in Shropshire, where she was enumerated with her family on the 1881 census. In 1891 and 1901 the censuses recorded the Evanses, a farming family headed by Joseph and Mary (née Rogers), at Grimmer in the parish of Worthen. By 1911 however the family had relocated to Meeson Grange, a move that brought Mary into contact with the Morgans at the Harebutts. After the loss of her husband Mary returned to live with her family. The 1921 census shows her with her siblings and her widowed father at Isombridge, where she was still living (with two of her bachelor brothers, at New Farm) in 1939. The registration of her death at Shrewsbury suggests either that she moved to (or was visiting) a location within that Registration District, or that she died in hospital there.
Waters Upton One-Place Study 