[12][13] Until the age of 21, he lived with his family at 32 Heol Isaf,[4][1] in a house which sat on the main road of the village beside what is now a Methodist church.

[15] He also had a lifelong love for gardening which began when he watched his father grow vegetables for the wartime dig for victory campaign.

Having begun his education near the end of World War II, Morgan found his class in the first year of primary school was mostly populated by evacuees.

[18] Morgan showed signs of intelligence at school, and he would be tracked two academic years ahead of his peers, sharing classes with his older brother Prys.

[21] He finished his secondary education there in 1957[23] after winning a place at St John's College, Oxford on an open exhibition for the study of modern languages.

[4][29]: 2 Morgan returned to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1963, where he took up his first job as a tutor organiser for the Workers' Educational Association (WEA),[18][10] which was then a training ground for future Labour Party MPs.

[49][3]: 68  He was associated with the "Riverside Mafia", a group of soft left Labour councillors in South Glamorgan County Council which included Mark Drakeford, Jane Hutt, Sue Essex and Morgan's wife Julie.

Mark Drakeford and Jane Hutt were suspended by the leadership of the Labour group in South Glamorgan County Council for opposing the scheme.

[53] On 3 July 1989, Morgan announced his opposition to the barrage, stating that it was wrong "to subject my constituents to disturbance for something of extremely doubtful value".

[54] He was a naturalist who found the bay's mudflats to be of value, and he believed that damming it could cause a permanent increase in drainage, damp and rot.

[28] Using parliamentary procedure and filibusters, Morgan was able to delay the construction of the barrage until the Conservative government finally pushed the bill through parliament in 1993.

[55][28] Morgan's campaign against the bill generated animosity between him and Alun Michael, who had supported the barrage, and it made him appear less trustworthy to the more centrist-leaning elements of the Labour Party.

[28] In 1993, Morgan warned John Redwood, the Welsh secretary, that a Labour government might stop the construction of the barrage before its completion.

This prompted Michael to state that he was "fed up" with Morgan's "outrageous and irresponsible nonsense", adding that his remarks could deter employers from coming to Cardiff.

[60] He spoke beyond his brief, asking why Wales received less investment than Cornwall and Devon and exploring a now disproven conspiracy theory[61] that the Spandau prisoner believed to be Nazi German deputy Führer Rudolf Hess was an imposter.

[17][60] On 30 July 1992, the recently elected Labour leader John Smith appointed Morgan as a shadow minister for Welsh affairs.

[79]: 40 Morgan's opposition to the Welsh quangos, as well as his attempts to stop the construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage, alienated the traditionalists within the Labour Party in Wales.

[4] He had a difficult relationship with some of Tony Blair's inner circle,[18] including his close confidant Alun Michael and his closest adviser Peter Mandelson.

[18][82] However, in what was viewed as a surprising decision, Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to give Morgan a role in the government.

[83][84] Ron Davies, the Welsh secretary in the new government, had wanted to keep Morgan in his team as a junior minister, but Blair refused to appoint him to such a role.

[84] Morgan returned to the backbenches[85]: 219  where he was elected chair of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee as a consolation prize.

[97] However, senior figures in the Labour Party in Wales decided to hold the election under an electoral college with block voting, which was decried as "undemocratic" by Davies' opponents.

In contrast, Michael was widely seen as a reluctant parachute candidate from London who was imposed on Wales by the Labour Party leadership.

A committed supporter of Welsh devolution, Morgan contested the position of Labour's nominee for the (then titled) First Secretary for Wales.

His opponent, Alun Michael, the new Secretary of State for Wales, was seen as a reluctant participant despite also having a long-standing commitment to Welsh devolution, and was widely regarded as being the choice of the UK leadership of the Labour Party.

Morgan's leadership was characterised by a willingness to distance himself from a number of aspects of UK Labour Party policy, particularly in relation to plans to introduce choice and competition into public services, which he has argued do not fit Welsh attitudes and values, and would not work effectively in a smaller and more rural country.

After one month of minority government, Morgan signed a coalition agreement (One Wales) with Ieuan Wyn Jones, leader of Plaid Cymru, on 27 June 2007.

Morgan became the first modern political leader of Wales to lead an Assembly with powers to pass primary legislation (subject to consent from Westminster).

[107] Counsel General Carwyn Jones, Health Minister Edwina Hart and Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney AM Huw Lewis entered a leadership contest to elect a new Labour leader in Wales.

[111][112] His elder brother Prys Morgan was a history professor at Swansea University[18] and his second cousin Garel Rhys was an academic.