Welsh Journals

CEREDIGION CYLCHGRAWN CYMDEITHAS HYNAFIAETHWYR CEREDIGION JOURNAL OF THE CEREDIGION ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY CYFROL (VOLUME) VIII 1977 RHIFYN (NUMBER) 2 CHARLES EVANS DAVIS MORGAN-RICHARDSON (1857-1913) I. FAMILY BACKGROUND According to a Richardson family pedigree copied and accepted by Francis Green, Charles Evans Davis Morgan-Richardson was de- scended paternally from a Scottish family who later settled in Ireland.1 At the beginning of the 17th century the Richardsons were an influential family of Edinburgh burgesses, and Alexander Richardson left his native Scotland for northern Ireland. In 1617 he bought the estate of Craigbalk in county Tyrone and built Drum Manor or Manor Richard- son as it was also known. One cannot help suspecting that the ac- quisition of this estate was connected in some way or another with the many grants of land made by James I to those hardworking, stable and ambitious Scotsmen who benefited from the plantations of Ulster whence the native Irish had been cleared from 1608 onwards. 2 Alexander Richardson married Grizel Stewart sister of James Stewart of Ballymenagh in county Tyrone. Like the Richardsons the family of Stewart had early in the reign of James VI and I migrated to Ireland, and had founded influential landowning families who pro- duced M.P.s, deputy lieutenants and magistrates, soldiers and sailors, lawyers and clerics, even adventurers who paid great attention to the interests of the state, and greater attention to the interests of their own families. William Richardson son of the above mentioned Alexander and Grizel married Mary Erskine, a kinswoman of the Rev. Sir Archibald Erskine of Augher Castle and Pavan Royale, whose wife was the daughter of Sir Paul Grove, 1st baronet. William and Mary Richard- son were succeeded by their son Alexander Richardson of Drum Manor who died in 1674. He had married Margaret daughter of Thomas