Charles Morgan's Diaries in Transcription

C harles Morgan (1796-1857) was a gentleman farmer who lived at Cae-Forgan Farm near Llanrhidian, nestling at the edge of Cefn Bryn Common. His wife Caroline (Carree) was the daughter of the vicar of Penmaen, and while they raised their family and dealt with the challenges of farming life, he recorded his experiences in a series of diaries, beginning in 1834, the year after his marriage, and ending just a few days before his death in 1857.

In 2021 we published a selection of his diaries in a book enriched with scholarly commentary and contextual analysis. But we felt we should go further. These diaries are such an important historical resource that we decided to make them all available here, unedited, in transcription. Far from replacing the book, they complement it, enabling you to use the scholarship of the book and the transcribed diaries together to understand the full picture of one man's life in Gower, and put him in the context of his social circle and the time in which he lived. The transcript was prepared by author Rod Cooper and includes his explanatory footnotes.

You can start at the beginning and work your way through the diaries in sequence. Alternatively, follow one of the links below to read the diary for that year. Each diary transcript has links to the following year and the year before.

Diaries survive for these years:

1834               1835               1837               1838               1839               1840               1841               1842               1843               1844               1845               1846               1847               1848               1849               1850               1852               1853               1854               1855               1857