Leonard Ray Morgan

Leonard Ray Morgan CBE (1894–1967) was the first permanent Secretary for Education in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

Biography

Early life and education

Morgan, whose father was a Sergeant in the Royal Artillery, was born 1894 in Montrose, Angus, Scotland. He emigrated to Rhodesia at about the age of eight years and spent the rest of his life there. He was educated at Prince Edward High School in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

He served with the British forces in the East Africa campaign in the First World War, and possibly with the Royal Flying Corps in France. He subsequently won a Rhodes Scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, where he obtained a degree in civil engineering. During his time at Oxford he was a close personal friend of the poet, Robert Graves (a fellow student at St. John's College) with whom he remained in contact for the remainder of his life.

Career

While in England he met, and subsequently married, a Swiss French governess, working for Lord Halifax, Mlle Madeleine ('Madi') Petitmaitre, the daughter of a butcher from Yverdon in the Canton de Vaud. They returned to Rhodesia where he took up a schools career as a mathematics teacher. He advanced rapidly and was successively Headmaster of three famous Rhodesian schools; Milton High School in Bulawayo and Chaplin High School in Gwelo (where he was Headmaster of the future Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith) and in Salisbury at Prince Edward High School.

He was then transferred to the Ministry of Education and subsequently appointed as the first permanent Secretary for Education in the Federal Government. Morgan modelled the Rhodesian school system on the English grammar schools and they were considered to be some of the finest state schools in the world at the time. He also played a prominent role in the advancement of African (i.e. black) education during the years of Federation (1953–1961).

Marriage and children

While in England he met, and subsequently married, a Swiss French governess, working for Lord Halifax, Mlle Madeleine ('Madi') Petitmaitre, the daughter of a butcher from Yverdon in the Canton de Vaud. The couple had two daughters, Anne (b. 1926) and Denise Helene (b. 1931).

Death and afterward

Morgan died in 1967. Morgan High School in Salisbury (today Harare) was named after him.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 40669. p. 22. 30 December 1955.
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