Morgan Williams (politician)

Morgan Williams
Morgan Williams in 1935
Member of the New Zealand Parliament for Kaiapoi
In office 1935 – 1946
Personal details
Born	1878 Wales
Died	1970 (aged 91–92)
Political party	Labour
Relations	Morgan Williams (grandson)

Charles Morgan Williams MBE (1878 – 4 August 1970), known as Morgan Williams, was a Mayor and Member of Parliament for Kaiapoi in Canterbury, New Zealand.

C. Morgan Williams was born in North Wales in 1878, and worked as a letter sorter in London. There he was active in the Battersea Branch of the British Social Democratic Federation and later secretary of the Clapham Branch.

He came to New Zealand in 1902, and worked as a farm labourer in the Kaiapoi district until 1906, when he bought and leased land in the Tram Road area and grew potatoes. On the peat land he developed an extensive drainage system to allow dairy farming and founded the Maesgwyn herd of pedigree Ayrshire cattle. Williams purchased the property known as "Waverley" from Richard Evans in 1925. He also established the grain and produce business of C. Morgan Williams and Son in Charles Street, Kaiapoi.

Morgan Williams was closely associated with afforestation at Kaiapoi for over fifty years. He undertook block plantings on Council Reserves, and at Ohoka, Clarkville and Mandeville. In 1939 he was appointed by the Kaiapoi Borough Council as honorary supervisor of forests. At a public meeting in 1955, Williams received a presentation from the Mayor Norman Kirk, in recognition of his service to the borough and his care of 245 acres of forest reserves.

Morgan Williams local body activities began with his election to the Kaiapoi Borough Council in 1927, he was elected Mayor in 1947 and served a term.

He joined the Social Democratic Party in 1913. He stood unsuccessfully for Labour in Kaiapoi in 1919, 1922, and 1925, and Mid-Canterbury in 1928.