Daniel Morgan

Daniel Morgan (7 June 1855 - >1911) was a singer who provided several songs for Alfred Williams.

Life

A family story had it that Daniel's great-grandfather was a squire who disinherited his son because he had fallen in love with a gipsy girl. Despite this they ran off together. Daniel's father, William, was a basketmaker, and Daniel was born in June 1855 whilst the family were camped on Abingdon Common in Berkshire. He was baptised in August that year at Clifton, Bristol. By 1871, William had taken his family to live at 2 Stanhope Street, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire where he continued to ply the trade of basket-maker. In 1875 Daniel married a local Cheltenham girl, Elizabeth Davis - at this point, both Daniel and his father were described as hawkers and the couple made the move down to Wiltshire, where they were noted as living in tents and travelling with other gipsy familes: King, Loveridge, Davies, Shaw, Smith and Stephens. He returned to Cheltenham at the turn of the century, where he was noted as having a shop as a "general dealer" in Worcester Street, only a few yards from his previous home and just down the road from his elderly father. After his father's death in 1904, he appears to have moved back to Wiltshire, where he was a "Marine Store Dealer", living with his wife and youngest son John at Malthouse Farm, Purton, on the edge of the common.

Alfred Williams met him in 1915 when he was living in a cottage at Braydon Wood Lane, Purton. Williams described his as the "local traveller and dealer". He died early in 1929. His youngest son John Morgan was interviewed by John Baldwin in the early 1960s, and Baldwin recorded John singing some of the songs he knew from his father.

Songs

Title	Roud number	Comments
Bold Sir Rilas	29
Captain Grant	1286
Joe Muggins	847
Milking Pail	114
Parson and the Sucking Pig	574
Sally M'roe	526
Spencer the Rover	1115	see reference for transcription

External links

• Folk Biography Information on Daniel Morgan and John Morgan

Paul Burgess