The contribution of Colonel Morgan Lindsay and his family during the Great War are being remembered by a special display in the CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket at the headquarters of Glamorgan County Cricket Club at the SWALEC Stadium.
The Colonel was one of the most prominent sporting country gentlemen in South Wales during the late 19th century, but tragically he and his wife lost three of their sons during World War One, including two in the space of a week in March 1918.
Morgan Lindsay was the grandson of Lord Tredegar and he enjoyed a successful career in the military, serving in South and Central Africa. He was also a talented amateur sportsman who in 1877/78 became the first Welshman to play in an FA Cup Final as he appeared in the Royal Engineers side which lost to the Wanderers at The Oval.
He was also a talented cricketer, playing for the Glamorganshire side, as well as the MCC and I Zingari, before retiring from the Royal Engineers and living at Ystrad Fawr, a substantial property near Ystrad Mynach, where he oversaw the creation of a cricket ground and subsequently formed his own team.
The Colonel also became involved in local politics, serving on the Caerphilly Urban District Council, besides acting as President of both the South Wales Football Association, and the Glamorgan Cricket League, in addition to serving on the committee of Glamorgan CCC and assisting their money-raising ventures as they moved from being a Minor County towards becoming a first-class club.
Given his long and distinguished military record, it was fitting that he should join up again with the Glamorganshire Yeomanry on the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, and he briefly spent time in France with the British Expeditionary Force before retreating back to the UK following the Battle of Mons. His sons also enjoyed a military career with the eldest, George having become a cadet at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He too was amongst the first wave of British troops to depart for foreign fields in August 1914, before being wounded during the Battle of Ypres.
In November 1916 George joined the Royal Flying Corps and after flying a series of successful sorties over enemy lines in France and Belgium, he was deployed back in Britain in the summer of 1917 to test a series of newly-built and repaired aircraft from the Rolls-Royce factory adjacent to Filton Airport in Bristol. With events on the Western Front poised to move into a decisive stage, his new duties for the War Effort were important in ensuring a decent supply of fit-for-purpose planes. Tragically his work – ironically well away from enemy fire – was to cost him his life as he was killed, together with an air mechanic who was aboard the plane, when it crashed near Chipping Sodbury on June 25 1917.
It was a grievous blow for Lindsay and his wife, but within nine months, they were dealt two further blows as they lost two further sons - Archie and Claud – who were killed within a week of each other on the Western Front. Archie was serving as a Lieutenant in the 7th Royal Monmouthshire Brigade when he was killed in the Pas-de-Calais area in March 1918. Archie lost his life during an Allied offensive on the Somme whilst serving as an Acting Major in the 33rd Battery of the Royal Field Artillery.
Claud’s wife subsequently gave birth to a boy who, like so many others born at that time, never knew their father. The birth of the little grandson was a modicum of comfort for Morgan Lindsay and his wife, and one can only wonder at how they coped with such personal tragedy.
After the Great War, Morgan Lindsay continued his involvement in sport by continuing to oversee matches at his ground in Ystrad Mynach, besides training racehorses from his stables. Indeed, he trained the winner of the Welsh Grand National in 1926 and 1928, besides having a winner at the Cheltenham Festival.
He died in November 1935 with his funeral being attended by the great and the good of sport and society in South Wales.
The life of Morgan Lindsay is remembered this summer in a series of short films and other displays at the award-winning CC4 Museum of Welsh Cricket at Glamorgan’s headquarters at the SWALEC Stadium.