Captain Tom Morgan (in wheelchair) presents the Isaac Bell Perpetual Challenge Cup at the 2015 National Irish Masters of Foxhounds Show. / Noel Mullins photo
Captain Thomas Morgan, MFH, died peacefully at his home, Hunters Lodge, Bishopstown , Lismore, Ireland on Sunday, March 15, 2015 at age ninety-four.
Captain Morgan worked closely with Ikey Bell, father of the Modern English Foxhound, and with Ben Hardaway, MFH of the Midland Foxhounds (GA), to create the Hardaway Crossbred. The Captain was Joint-Master, with his wife Elsie, of the West Waterford Foxhounds (IRE) from 1953 to 1989. For more on this iconic triumvirate of hound breeders, read “The Hardaway-Morgan-Bell Connection.” Here is Noel Mullins’ tribute to this outstanding soldier/sportsman:
Captain Tom Morgan, MFH, was a gentleman, wise, widely read, passionate about horses and hounds, and a diplomat who had a wonderful relationship with neighbours and landowners across the hunting country. He welcomed visitors to his very traditional home with his lovely, gentle Welsh accent, and they seldom left without the customary cup of tea and talk of hunting and horse breeding.
Originally from Newport in Wales, Tom served in the British Army Royal Artillery during World War II travelling to a remarkable thirty-two countries. He proposed to Elsie who was whipping in to the Llangibby Foxhounds in Wales when home on leave. He was on the Polish/German border when peace was declared and rescued twenty-five abandoned German cavalry horses. With fifteen soldiers, they hacked the horses on a 975-mile journey to Munster in Westphalia to safety. The war horses were transformed into hunters to follow the pack Elsie and Tom founded in Schleswig Holstein when Tom stayed on to help with the aftermath of war.
Tom and Elsie fell in love with the countryside of Waterford when on a hunting holiday to Ireland in 1949, settling down and becoming Joint-Masters of the West Waterford Foxhounds from 1953-89, with Tom continuing in the mastership until his passing. He founded the West Waterford Pony Club with Alison Trigg, was very much in demand building showjumping courses, and worked with the team that designed the new hunt kennels. Together they judged at hound shows around the world.
Tom and Elsie bred international showjumping horses like Red Fox, Gone Away, and Hill Fox that competed at Nations Cup and Olympic level for Italian brothers Colonel Raimondo and Captain Piero D’Inzeo who together competed and were medal winners in a remarkable eight Olympic Games. They also produced the Middleweight Champion at the Royal Dublin Society Horse Show. Elsie represented Ireland on Finola and Rooney in showjumping in Nations Cups in Ostend and Rotterdam, and rode the winners of over 150 races including the European Derby in Belgium. Their horses were always dual purpose; even though they could be competing at Grand Prix and Nations Cup level in the summer, the horses were expected to carry the Morgan’s during the hunting season.
Probably the most iconic figures in foxhound breeding in the last century were the American Isaac Bell, Tom and Elsie Morgan, and Ben Hardaway. Bell, master of the South & West Wilts, Galway Blazers, and the Kilkennys, had rocked the hunting establishment by breeding what is now the Modern English Foxhound, using a cross of Welsh bloodlines. Later in his life, Bell, while living in the Duke of Devonshire’s Lismore Castle, in Waterford, joined forces with Tom and Elsie to develop a crossbred with College Valley fell bloodlines. Then together with Ben Hardaway, MFH of the Midland Foxhounds in the USA, the three breeders crossed the West Waterford cross with Hardaway’s July hounds—dating back to two Irish hounds, Mountain and Muse, imported to Maryland in 1814—to develop the Midland Crossbred.
The West Waterford hounds were mainly College Valley white, which made them easy to see in the Waterford hill country, and were said to resemble a flock of seagulls in the distance weaving their way across the mountains. By this time Bell was an invalid but it did not stop him joining Tom and Elsie following with his driver by car when the three of them decided to have a private day in Skirook Wood on the Lismore Estate.
Elsie passed away in 2008, but Tom remained active despite his advanced age, attending weekly meets and presenting the Isaac Bell Trophy at the National Hound Show in Stradbally last year.
Tom’s funeral service was held at St. Luke’s Church in Knockmourne, escorted by mounted outriders all in hunting pink and hounds. His coffin was carried by six hunt staff and officials, and he was laid to rest beside his beloved wife Elsie to the sound of “Gone Away” on the hunting horn by West Waterford huntsman Colman Walsh. Tom is survived by his nephew Ewart Richards and his wife Barbara, grand-nephews Nigel and his wife Toni, great, great, grand-nephews James and Dominick, neighbours, and friends.
Posted March 20, 2015
Updated March 26, 2015
Author and photojournalist Noel Mullins is a lifelong foxhunter and a regular contributor to Foxhunting Life.