The last surviving employee of The Powdermills at age 96.
NEARLY 100 YEARS OLD
Battle's oldest inhabitant dies
(My Great-Great Grandfather)
By the death of Mr.James Morgan, Battle has lost its oldest inhabitant. Born on the 18th March 1823, he would have reached 100 years next March 1923. Coming to Battle from Ticehurst with his parents while still a baby he has lived in the town ever since.
He started work at the age of nine, and worked until he was eighty-five. One of his first jobs was as a "House-boy" in the Abbey.
Going to work at the Powder Mills for the late Mr. Charles Lawrence, he drove the powder van, and during the Crimea war he helped with the transport of 1,300 barrels of gunpowder to Tonbridge in Kent.
He lived for 67 years in Powder Mill Cottage where his wife died 15 years ago at the age of 82, on her Birthday.Mr. Morgan's memory was good to the last, and he found great pleasure in relating to anyone about things that had passed in Battle years ago.
He had helped to make the new road to London, and remembered Battle as a coaching-station. The oak trees that are now to be seen in the Abbey Park close by the Stumbletts were planted by Mr. Morgan as young saplings. He was a great believer in Herbs and attributed his long life to having used them.
Mr. Herbert Blackman found him of great assistance in compiling his book about the Battle Powder Mills. See the photograph of James Morgan, as it was reproduced in Mr Blackman's book, at the top of this page
Mr Morgan has 60 descendants alive today, including the eldest son, who will be 74 next year, living in America, and a daughter who has emigrated to Australia.
REMEMBER, THESE WORDS WERE WRITTEN IN 1922
James took to his bed ten days ago, and while being visited by one of his grandsons,(my grandfather Percival White) sang a song to him in quite a strong voice.
His end came quite peacefully, after having had the careful
attention of his daughter Elizabeth, and son-in-law, Walter White (my Great-Grandparents) whose great object had always been
to nurse him along so as to reach his 100th Birthday.
He almost made it !
He died in November 1922,
The Powdermills
and Great Grandfather Morgan
The year 1825 saw the last of the iron furnaces in Sussex, but then, came new industry, the making of Gunpowder
My Great-Grandfather, James Morgan 1823-1922 worked at the Powdermills. One of his jobs was to drive wagon loads of the gunpowder to Tonbridge where it was loaded on barges and conveyed by water to magazines at Erith
My Grandfather, Percival J.White, and his elder brother Reginald R.White, were both born at the beginning of the 20th Century in the Fishing Cottage seen on the left side of the picture above