BOOKS BY WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT

 

BOOKS BY WILLIAM CROSS, FSA Scot

·                     The Life and Secrets of Almina Carnarvon. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914081. 2011.

·                    The Dustbin Case : Dennistoun v Dennistoun. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914043 .2012.

·                    Lordy! Tutankhamun's Patron As A Young Man. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914050 2012.

·                    A Beautiful Nuisance : The Life and Death of the Hon. Gwyneth Ericka Morgan by Monty Dart and William Cross. Book Midden Publiishing ISBN 9781905914104 2012.

·                    Aspects of Evan : The Last Viscount Tredegar by Monty Dart and William Cross. [ Book Midden Publishing ]] ISBN 9781905914159 2012

·                     Not Behind Lace Curtains: The Hidden World Of Evan, Viscount Tredegar. Book Midden Publishing ISBN9781905914210: 2013.

·                    Catherine and Tilly: Porchey Carnarvon's Two Duped Wives . Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914258 : 2013.

·                     Tilly Losch Schlagobers Sweet Fragments From Her Life . Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914272 : 2014.

·                    Evan Frederic Morgan, Viscount Tredegar : The Final Affairs, Financial and Carnal . Book Midden Publishing [[ ISBN 9781905914241]: 2014.

·                     The Abergavenny Witch Hunt of 1942. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 978190514227 :2014.

·                     Lois Sturt, Wild Child. A Glance at Hon. Lois Ina Sturt, Viscountess Tredegar Book Midden Publishing ISBN 978190514319: 2014.

·                     Evan, Lord Tredegar, Selected Letters, Prose and Quotations. The Mystic Muse of Evan Frederic Morgan. . Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914333 : 2015.

·                     The Engagement Diaries of Hon. Lois Sturt, 1919-1924 Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914340 : 2015. ( 2016).

·                     Carnarvon, Carter and Tutunkhamun Revisted. The hidden truths and doomed relationships. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914364 . 2016. ( Release date November, 2016).

·                     Sketches of Evan, Viscount Tredegar 'Lord of the Lies' As seen by friends, foes and lovers. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914463 . 2017.

·                    Myths About The Morgans of Tredegar House, Newport, South Wales. Busting the History Fraudsters Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914425 . 2018.

·                    An album of sexually explicit verses and jokes. From the Collection of Lois Ina Sturt and Reggie Pembroke Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914401 . 2018.

·                     The Morgans of Tredegar House. Great War Roll of Honour: The Hoare, Lindsay and Mundy Great Grandsons of the First Lord and Lady Tredegar Who Died During the 1914-1918 War Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914487 2018.

·                     Prince Victor Duleep Singh & the Curse of the Carnarvons Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914357 2019.

·                     Tredegar House Weekend Parties, Frolics and Fun Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914531 2019.

·                     Footprints on the Sands of Time. A glance at Welsh born photographer Angus McBean Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914579 2020.

·                    More Sketches of Evan, Viscount Tredegar: 'Lord of the Lies' Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914470 2020.

·                     Beechwood A Story of Childhood Book Midden Publishing [ ISBN 9781905914173 ]] 2021.

·                    The Moles of Intriguer House, Bassaleg Fields, South Wales  Book Midden Publishing [ ISBN 9781905914708 ]] 2021.

·                     Tails of Phoebe and Mags Worthington of The Mews, Belgravia. Short Stories With Two Darn Cats Book Midden Publishing ISBN 978-1905914593 2021.

·                     More on Prince Victor Duleep Singh & the Curse of the Carnarvons : The Final Twists Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914739 2022.

·                    Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914777 2022.

·                    More Tails of Phoebe and Mags Worthington of The Mews, Belgravia. Short Stories With Two Darn Cats Book Midden Publishing ISBN 978-1905914784 2022.

·                    Lady Winifred Burghclere and Her Troublesome Daughters. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 978-1905914418    Released  2022.

·                     Highclere Insider-David Sox : The Man Who Knew Too Much Book Midden Publishing [ ISBN 9781905914746] ( Release date held up for legal reasons.)

·                    Rosemary and Alastair : Everything is More Beautiful Because We're Doomed. Book Midden Publishing ISBN 9781905914289. 2017. ( Release date 2026).

 

ENQUIRIES

PLEASE EMAIL WILLIAM CROSS

williecross@aol.com

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering Evan Morgan, Viscount Tredegar

 

REMEMBERING EVAN

 EVAN MORGAN, VISCOUNT TREDEGAR

 DIED HONEYWOOD HOUSE, ROWHOOK,  SURREY

27th  APRIL 1949

 

Evan Morgan, Viscount Tredegar, ( 1893-1949)  broke the rules, rejecting work to increase the family’s wealth from land, railways and coal to spend his allowance on fun. He rubbed shoulders with bohemians, scene-setters, painters and film stars from Charlie Chaplin to Tallulah Bankhead.  He dazzled literary contemporaries like Aldous Huxley (who portrayed him in his book Crome Yellow), showering the mediocre and handsome youths with praise and presents, and paying their bills.

 

At Garsington Manor the Morrells hailed Evan’s  talent, whilst Bloomsbury’s clique thought him shallow. In the Great War he dodged rat-infested trenches by citing a weak chest, the bane of his existence.  He tried Whitehall politics pursuing David  Lloyd George’s mistress, Francis Stevenson, who dubbed him a liar; he also attempted the diplomat’s role at the 1919  Paris Peace Conference.

 

Vowing to reject pleasure and birthright he found mysticism, spirituality and Roman Catholicism, briefly spending time as a monk, later studying at Beda College, Rome, whilst acting as a  Papal Chamberlain. Aside from the confessional he shared excesses with Augustus John, Gerald Berners, and lined his bed with satyrs.

 

Evan’s attraction for men, from Princes to valets and occultists encountered his dour father’s wrath. An affair with Ronald Firbank  sunk him, as did a fling with Alistair Graham,  Evelyn Waugh’s lover.  He attracted iconic women like Diana Manners, Nancy Cunard and Rosa Lewis and took two wives; but both marriages were shams. 

 

On inheriting the Morgan Estate Evan transformed it for rave weekend parties, nude bathing, and black magic rituals. The footmen adorned powdered wigs.  Houseguests were plentiful from H G Wells to the Great Beast, Alistair Crowley. Godfrey Winn sent Daily Mirror reader’s bulletins from Wales’ Tredegar House. In the Second World War Evan disgraced himself, and was Court Martialed for offences against the Official Secrets Acts.  In his last years he travelled abroad seeking salvation and Irish citizenship. The Tredegar Estate was bankrupted by death duties and Evan finally finished off by cancer, at only 55.    

 

Evan never found happiness; his misfortune was to be born with too much money, too little health and no practical sense. His deep love of animals irritated his “huntin, shootin a’ fishin” relations, wrecking gin-traps and creating his own zoo, with a kangaroo (Somerset), a honey bear (Alice) and a parrot  (Blue Boy).  Throughout decades of high-living Evan continued to write poetry, befriended Bosie Douglas and planned a biography leaving the contents of a black box to his Executors.  They deemed Society was not ready for the scandal; the box was destroyed, with instructions cascaded to burn everything associated with Evan Morgan.  

The funeral pyres glowed for hours.

William Cross, FSA Scot

Evan's Biographer

27 April 2023

 Principal Biographical Sources for Evan Morgan

Books Published by Book Midden Publishing, 58 Sutton Road, Newport NP19 7JF

By Monty Dart and William Cross

A Beautiful Nuisance : The Life and Death Of Hon Gwyneth Ericka Morgan

[ISBN 9781905914104]: 2012

Aspects of Evan : The Last Viscount Tredegar, by Monty Dart and William Cross.  [[ISBN 9781905914159]: 2012

By William Cross, FSA Scot

Not Behind Lace Curtains: The Hidden World Of Evan, Viscount Tredegar.  [ISBN9781905914210]: 2013.

Evan Frederic Morgan, Viscount Tredegar : The Final Affairs, Financial and Carnal . [[ISBN 9781905914241]: 2014.

Lois Sturt, Wild Child : A Glance at Hon. Lois Ina Sturt, Viscountess Tredegar. [ISBN 9781905914319] : 2014.

Evan, Lord Tredegar : Selected Letters, Prose and Quotations [ISBN9783905914333] : 2015

Evan, Lord Tredegar : Further Letters and Prose Pieces: With Anecdotes About Evan.  [ISBN 9781905914388] : 2016

Evan, Lord Tredegar: Final Affairs - The Aftermath: The Welsh Peer, Poet & Pleasure Seeker [ISBN 9781905914326] : 2016

Sketches of Evan, Viscount Tredegar 'Lord of the Lies' As seen by friends, foes and lovers. [ISBN 9781905914463] : 2017.

An album of sexually explicit verses and jokes. From the collection of Lois Ina Sturt and  Reggie Pembroke. [ISBN 9781905914401] : 2018.

Myths About The Morgans of Tredegar House, Newport, South Wales. Busting the History Fraudsters [ISBN 9781905914425] : 2018.

More Sketches of Evan, Viscount Tredegar: 'Lord of the Lies' [ISBN 781905914470] : 2020.

FURTHER INFORMATION

CONTACT WILLIAM CROSS BY EMAIL

 williecross@aol.com

 

More Tails of Phoebe and Mags Worthington Of “The Mews”, Belgravia

 More Tails of Phoebe and Mags Worthington

Of “The Mews”, Belgravia

Stories of Two Darn Cats

Invented by William Cross, FSA Scot

IN FULL COLOUR WITH MANY DRAWINGS

Another sequence of tails continuing the adventures of Phoebe and Mags Worthington, the two wards of Dame Katrina Ogilvy, a famous opera singer. Set in a London Mews and in the British countryside at large in the year 1948. All the old favourites return: Olga the cook, Natasha, the Ukrainian Kitchen maid, Daniel, the GPO telegram boy as well as the much loved regulars Montgomerie, Clarkie and Podge from the Auld Murdie Hoose Estate, the ancient seat of the Ogilvy clan in Scotland. Those two evil rats, Moogan and Gatsby, also return to commit their most diabolical deeds ever.

There are tangled webs aplenty involving deceit, spies, traitors, kidnapping, all certain to provoke and delight the steady number of followers of the manic world created for sheer fun and escapism and where good and bad, justice and injustice and the heavy strains of love and duty, constantly overlap. Lots of new characters appear too and often with more questions than answers at stake in the topsy turvy game of life and death and distinguishing fiction from fact.

CONTACT WILL DIRECT ON AVAILABILITY

williecross@aol.com

The original tails are also still available

https://the-mews-belgravia.blogspot.com/2021/02/phoebe-and-mags-worthington-of-mews.html

 

Lady Winifred Burghclere and her Troublesome Daughters By William Cross, FSA Scot

 

Lady    Winifred    Burghclere  
And   her   Troublesome   Daughters
Four   Immoral   Tales   From   The   Roaring  Twenties

NEW BOOK  : NOW AVAILABLE 

FROM THE AUTHOR WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT 

SYNOPIS

 

Winifred Burghclere  was  the  clever   sister of the Lord Carnarvon who discovered Tutankhamun, a biographer of Restoration toffs  and lady of letters. Her early years  were  spent at Highclere Castle, the back drop to TV’s ‘Downton Abbey’.    

Her widower father, the 4^th  Earl, a Cabinet Minister   made her his private secretary, Winifred learned early on how to keep secrets. Twice married she produced four lively, racy daughters from her second  marriage to the quixotic Herbert Gardner,  an actor playwright who turned to politics, a former  Liberal Government Minister  he was raised to the peerage.

 

A stickler for rules, duty and  old world  values  Winifred completely hemmed her daughters in,  they  were kept under their mother’s grip, bullied, isolated  and schooled by governesses. The girls   were named  Juliet,  Alathea, Mary and Evelyn Gardner,  each had a long string of  other forenames. They  began as  a peculiar  mix of  the prudish and  moral,  “as  naive as nuns “,   then  became  the complete  flip  side of this,  amoral, and unconventional, hence troublesome.

 

The  Gardner  girls’ rebellious period  overlapped with  the Great War and its aftermath into the Bright Young Things era and the roaring twenties. Each of the  girls had disastrous  marriages  albeit with  interesting men  like Geoffrey Fry  a member of the Fry’s chocolate family,  he  was  Private Secretary to several Prime Ministers and married the  very disturbed slim, boyish,  Alathea. The youngest Gardner daughter Evelyn  was the first wife of  Evelyn Waugh,  the  writer  of  Scoop and Brideshead Revisited  who  pop up in the infamous ‘ He-Evelyn-She- Evelyn’ partnership.

 

In this tale of  aristocratic snobbery,  scandal  and love  William Cross  ( author of several books on the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle ( Downton Abbey) ) offers a quaint  blend of  exciting, amusing,  shocking tales, unearthing  the inevitable  excesses, casualties and  horrors  of   the era’s pleasure domes  of night club frolics,  themed  dances,  crazy parties and drink, drugs and sex fuelled  romps   on the  London scene : all of which  forced four ‘poor little rich girls’ to  quickly grow up and face the consequences of their actions.  

FOR MORE BACKGROUND DETAILS  GO TO THIS LINK BELOW

https://lady-winifred-burghclere.yolasite.com/details-of-lady-burghclere-and-daughters.php

ISBN 10 1-905914-41-5   ISBN 13 978-1-905914-41-8     

Published by  Book Midden Publishing c/o William . Cross,  58 Sutton Road  Newport  Gwent   NP19 7JF   United Kingdom 

MORE INFORMATION  AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM THE AUTHOR    

email WILL CROSS

williecross@aol.com

 

Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons: A Book Review By Michael Keyton

 

Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons

By William Cross, FSA Scot

 A Book Review By Michael Keyton

I have, in the past, referred to Will Cross as a truffle hound, ferreting out the hidden or obscure in the archives, and here again, the footnotes prove an evocative joy. In this book, however, Will Cross is less the truffle hound with a yen for the occasional ferret, more the rottweiler. Lies, Damned Lies and the Carnarvons is a ruthless demolition job on what a family might prefer to remain hidden. And yes, to play Devil’s Advocate for the moment, families do have a right to keep their skeletons tightly locked up, but only as much right as the researcher has to winkle them out. 

 

The book starts off on what seem relatively trivial, but even these small things—such as the Earl of Carnarvon’s near fatal car accident on an obscure German road, is meticulously researched, along with what at first seems to be a meaningless untruth in the official accounts—ie that the incident occurred in 1901, that Carnarvon recuperated in Egypt, and there discovered a lifelong interest in tombs and archaeology. 

 

William Cross however proves beyond doubt that  the car accident occurred in 1909 and conjectures the motive behind the shuffling of dates. Lord Carnarvon was in Hamburg in the Summer of 1898 for specialised treatment. A misspent youth had seen him riddled with ‘syphilis of the face, neck and mouth..’ That and severe lung disease made it highly unlikely that his son and heir, the Sixth Earl of Carnarvon born in 1898 and his daughter, Lady Evelyn, conceived in 1900 were actually his, especially since his wife, Almina, denied ever having sexual relations with him, not even kissing his mouth. What better way to obfuscate and explain Carnarvon's ill health and sojourn in Egypt than to blame it on a motoring injury that wouldn't occur for another eight years. 

 

The book is a real potpourri—not all of it fragrant—of well researched tittle-tattle and gossip, totally gripping but too much to incorporate in a review.

 

I loved, for example the picture conjured up of the Earl and Countess at an archaeological dig

 

‘Even in the baking hot wilderness of the deserts of Egypt, Almina was like a beacon, radiating light.' One observer described her ‘dressed for a garden party . . . with charming patent leather shoes and a good deal of jewellery flashing in the sunlight.’ 

 

Neither deigned to do any digging. ‘They liked to watch, and sat under heavy canvas in the shade, protected from the sun and sandstorms, relaxing in idle comfort, reading and drinking mint tea. A native boy with a stick was on guard to deter snakes, with another to swat flies.’

 

Almina was an efficient and dutiful wife who found sexual relief where she could—even at the age of seventy with a heating engineer.  By then, her husband, the Earl of Carnarvon was long dead; a victim of an insect bite and the curse of King Tut—a popular theory of the time and one that conveniently glossed over the more likely cause—the sins of the flesh having caught up with him at last.

 

As ever, Almina proved the dutiful wife. When in the last stages of  his  illness,  she flew with an amenable doctor  in a small  plane to his sick bed and put him out of his misery. 

An experienced nurse after World War I who had long advocated euthanasia and was conversant with morphine, it is suggested and hinted at by those at the time that  she quietly and mercifully put her husband to sleep. 

 

Unlucky with her choice of husband, though she made the best of it, Almina was equally unlucky with her children. Her son-in-law took a profound dislike of her and made it difficult for Almina and her daughter Evelyn to meet. 

But the real rascal was her son, the new ‘Porchey’ and the future Sixth Earl who showed little love for his mother - possibly because she spent much of the money he hoped to inherit.

 

He was a bounder of the first order and ended up as the archetypal ‘dirty old man.’  Contracting mumps as a child, may or may not have made him sterile. His second wife the actress Tilly Losch strongly suggests he was, and rumours abound that his first wife, who he drove to alcoholism and a nervous breakdown,  provided him with an heir with the help of artificial insemination and perhaps a willing butler. It was, apparently, a common practise at the time, at least amongst those aristocrats desperate for an heir.

 

Sterile he may or may not have been, but an arrogant cad he was without doubt. One peeress was warned against spending a night at Highclere, the Earl’s castle, because of his propensity to appear stark naked from a wardrobe ‘brandishing his male member like a pirate’s cutlass.’ The peeress added that it was ‘exactly the same at Blenheim. Porchey Carnarvon and Bert Marlborough were alike, barrack room roughs, both together in the Hussars Regiment. They treated their women like their horses, and much worse.’

 

According to Michael Lewis, the Earl’s Chimney Sweep and one who knew the estate well, “His Lordship went around knocking and calling out at cottage doors – inside, the girls knew what he wanted and shuddered but conceded. Any refusal would have resulted in their family being thrown off the estate. . .It was horrible…The Earl was not a good man, he was vile."

 

He ended up as a rather sad nuisance, struck down by Parkinsons and housed in Edgecombe Nursing Home in Newbury where he continued to behave disgracefully to the end. 

 

Poor old Almina, meanwhile ended up in a terraced house in Bristol—a far cry from her glamorous youth and chatelaine of Highclere —where she died aged ninety in 1969, the year  of Woodstock and the breakup of the Beatles.

 LIES DAMNED LIES AND THE CARNARVONS

 FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK

 e-mail

 williecross@aol.com

 Available  on ebay and Amazon

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204089212208

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lies-Damned-Carnarvons-William-Cross/dp/1905914776/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2T20VNCAXRNKH&keywords=LIES+DAMNED+LIES+AND+THE+CARNARVONS&qid=1663274777&sprefix=lies+damned+lies+and+the+carnarvons%2Caps%2C501&sr=8-1

 About Michael Keyton

Liverpool born and bred, Author of " The Gift" series, "Tales from the Murenger", "The Clay Cross Chronicles" and many others. 

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Keyton/e/B016S5RBI4