Kenneth O. Morgan

Kenneth Owen Morgan, Baron Morgan (born 16 May 1934) is a Welsh historian and author, known especially for his writings on Modern British history and politics and on Welsh history. He is also a regular reviewer and broadcaster on radio and television.

He was a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford from 1966 to 1989 and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales from 1989 to 1995. In this capacity, he served as a Welsh Supernumerary Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford from 1991 to 1992. In 1983 he was elected Fellow of the British Academy and in 1992 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford, and in 2002 of Oriel College, Oxford. Morgan is a member of the Labour Party, and in 2000 he was made a life peer as Baron Morgan, of Aberdyfi in the County of Gwynedd. He was married to the historian and criminologist Dr Jane Morgan, who died in 1992; they had two children together. In 2009 he married Dr. Elizabeth Gibson, senior lecturer in Law at the universities of Tours and Bordeaux.

He is the author of many acclaimed works, such as The People's Peace, his notable history of postwar Britain, and has completed biographies of many famous politicians, including David Lloyd George, Keir Hardie, James Callaghan and Michael Foot. He is the editor of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, to which he contributed the two final chapters (1914–2000 and 2000–10). He also edited the Welsh History Review from 1961 to 2003. He became a Druid of the Gorsedd of Bards in 2008 and in 2009 received the gold medal from the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion for lifetime achievement. He is also a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Works

• David Lloyd George, Welsh Radical as World Statesman (1963)
• Wales in British Politics, 1868-1922 (1963, rev ed 1992)
• Freedom or Sacrilege (1966)
• The Age of Lloyd George (1971)
• (ed.) Lloyd George, Family Letters (1973)
• Lloyd George (1974)
• Keir Hardie, Radical and Socialist (1975)
• Consensus and Disunity (1979)
• (jointly) Portrait of a Progressive (1980)
• Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980 (1981)
• Labour in Power, 1945-1951 (1984)
• (joint ed.) Welsh Society and Nationhood (1984)
• (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain (1984, many rev eds down to 2009, over 750,000 copies sold)
• Labour People (1987, rev ed 1992)
• (ed.) The Oxford History of Britain (1987, rev ed 2010)
• The Red Dragon and the Red Flag (1989)
• The People's Peace: Britain since 1945 (1989, rev ed 2001)
• Modern Wales, Politics, Places and People (1995)
• (ed.) The Young Oxford of Britain and Ireland (1996)
• Callaghan: A Life (1997)
• (ed.) Crime, Police and Protest in Modern British Society (1999)
• The Great Reform Act of 1832 (2001)
• The Twentieth Century (2001)
• Universities and the State (2002)
• Michael Foot: A Life (2007)
• Ages of Reform' (2010)

Offices held

Academic offices
Preceded by Gareth Owen	Principal, then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales Aberystwyth 1989-1995	Succeeded by Derec Llwyd Morgan

References

• Announcement of his introduction at the House of Lords House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 12 July 2000