John Morgan

Born on 25 January 1828 at Craithie and Braemar in Aberdeenshire, John Morgan was for many years one of the Queen’s gillies at Balmoral and is mentioned by name several times in her journals.

He appears on the 1861 census as a ‘Gamekeeper’ living at Glassalt Cottage on the shore of Loch Muick in Aberdeenshire. This was subsequently acquired by Queen Victoria and demolished. In its place she built Glas-allt-Shiel, completed in 1868, which she called Glassalt. She intended the lodge to be her ‘widow’s house,’ a place of retreat following the death of the Prince Consort. The Scottish academic Adam Watson has called its location ‘undoubtedly one of the most spectacular situations of any lodge in the Highlands.’

In 1881 John Morgan was a ‘Game Keeper (Dom. Serv.)’ living in the West Lodge at Balmoral Castle, another fine building still standing today.

He died on 26 July 1890. The following short obituary appeared in the Aberdeen Press and Journal (30 July 1890) under the heading ‘Death of an Old Servant of the Queen.’

‘On Saturday last the grave closed over the remains of one of the oldest of the Queen’s servants at Balmoral – John Morgan, who died at his residence there on Wednesday last, after a brief illness, at the age of 62 years. He had been in Her Majesty’s service as a forester for the long period of 39 years, and the Queen and Royal family, as we have reason to know, esteemed him highly. He was a man of quiet, unassuming manners and of sterling worth. His death has cast a gloom over the district, for he was respected in a high degree, not only by his fellow servants, but by all who knew him.’

‘From a photograph by Watson / taken in the Year 1879 / Reproduced and printed in carbon for / H. M. The Queen / by Jabez Hughes, Ryde, I.W.’