The only known possible photograph of Thomas James Monk, from the Photograph album of the Monk family and their relations; includes photographs of the Monk brewery, Bear Yard, Lewes, St Peters Church, the Dome, Steyne Gardens and Trafalgar Street, Brighton. Courtesy of the East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office at The Keep (ref. HIL 5/44/5). The BOC would be grateful if any of our readers could supply a certified photograph or portrait him.
While Thomas James Monk was among those attending the founding meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club in 1892, very little appears to have been written about his life and ornithological activities. He was born in 1831* in Lewes, Sussex, to the corn merchant and brewer Edward Monk (1799–1888), being the second of four children – Emily, Thomas, Midhurst and Edward Jr. In the late 1850s, Edward Monk Sr had acquired the Bear Brewery, sited at the rear of the Bear Inn on the high street in Lewes, and ran it as Edward Monk and Sons, Thomas and Edward Jr helping in its management. Under the Monk’s ownership the associated licensed and off-licensed houses in Lewes, Brighton and the surrounding area increased in number from 32 to 52, presumably attesting to the success of the business and to its impact on the Monk fortunes. Indeed, Edward Sr was later described as a ‘millionaire’, and when he died in 1888, aged 88, he bequeathed Thomas and Edward Jr the sum of £6.3 million (at 2024 values) each, Midhurst having died at the age of 15. The brewery passed to Thomas and Edward Jr, but Thomas left the business just a year later, selling his interest in it to his brother. Nine years later, in 1898, Edward Jr sold the brewery and its tied estate to the Southdown & East Grinstead Brewery.
The Monk family must have lived a privileged life given Edward Sr’s business success. Although the National Archives report that Edward Monk Sr was a noted prominent Liberal and a major promoter and manager of several of the railways serving Lewes, he was also a slave owner and, on the British abolition of slavery in 1833, was compensated to the tune of £800 8s 7d for 55 slaves he had owned on the Darby’s Estate, Antigua – some £82,450 at the Bank of England estimated 2025 value.
Although a founder member, it appears that Thomas Monk was not a regular attendee at BOC meetings. Apart from the inaugural meeting, the records suggest that he only made two other appearances, in December 1893 and April 1894, and never made any recorded comments. Perhaps he was truly an amateur, or was Lewes just too far from London to make visits easy? Neither does he appear to have published in either the Bull. BOC or the Ibis. He had joined the British Ornithologist’s Union in 1890, and a brief obituary appeared in the Ibis in 1900, where he is described as a ‘fine specimen of the sportsman-naturalist’. There are no records of him being employed after selling his shares in the brewery and he may well just have lived on his inheritance. His collection of birds taken in Sussex was celebrated and contained some remarkably rare British vagrants, including the first Black-throated Thrush, a Red-throated Pipit (later confirmed as a particularly brightly coloured Meadow Pipit by Michael Nicoll in 1909), the first Black-headed Bunting and Rustic Bunting, the only Little Bunting, the first Scarlet Grossbeak, and the only White-winged Lark. ‘Several of these were taken alive by bird-catchers in the Brighton area and kept in Monk’s large aviary, in which he took great pride, and where he was reportedly successful in breeding and crossing captive birds.’
The female White-winged Lark (an extremely rare visitor to Britain from the steppes of central Asia) had been with a flock of Snow Buntings near Brighton on the 2nd November 1869. It was netted alive and was first thought to have been a Snow Bunting but was properly identified later that day by a certain Mr Rowley, who showed it as a prepared specimen at a meeting of the Zoological Society on the 27th January 1870. Thomas Monk later acquired the specimen from Rowley, and it passed to the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton after Monk’s death.
In contrast to Monk’s acceptance of the collector’s identification of the ‘Red-throated Pipit’ (perhaps illustrative of the over-enthusiasm of some collectors of the day), Monk’s later acquisition of a Black-throated Thrush, shot near Lewes on the 23rd December 1868 tells a more flattering story of his meticulous nature. John Walpole-Bond recounts a letter from a good friend of Monk, that Monk had chanced on a passing bricklayer carrying a shot bird as he was out walking. Monk immediately recognized the bird as a rarity and promptly bought it for five shillings, ‘the recipient imagining that he had gained easily the best of the bargain. Indeed, he afterwards laughingly told his cronies that he considered Monk a —- fool for having given him so much for a —- old thrush.’ Walpole-Bond went on to praise Monk’s ‘perspicacity’ and to speculate on the bricklayer’s response had he known that Monk could easily have sold the specimen ‘over and over again for ten pounds and more’ and remarked on its passage into the Booth Museum’s collections in Brighton.
The ibis obituary finally notes that Monk was ‘a good shot and a rider and a genial companion, with a fund of racing and racy reminiscences’, and that ‘his loss will be very much felt by those who knew him, both in and beyond Sussex.’ One can only imagine the sort of banter that might have flowed across his dining table!
According to the Ibis obituary, Thomas Monk died at his home in St Anne’s, Lewes, on the 22nd December, 1899, aged 70.
*The Ancestry website confirms Thomas Monks’ date of birth as 1831, but other accounts vary, and both 1830 and 1831 are quoted – neither of which quite tally with him being ‘70’ on his death, as per the Ibis obituary.
Sources:
Coombes, Pam (2009). Lewes History Group: Bulletin 123, October 2020 pp.169-192. 3. Lewes Slave owners. https://leweshistory.org.uk/2020/11/03/lewes-history-group-bulletin-123-october-2020/
Edward Monk 1799-1888. Millionaire Corn Merchant, Master Brewer and Slave Merchant. https://wardfamily.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Edward-Monk-1799-1888-Slave-Owner-Millionaire-Corn-Merchant-Master-Brewer-of-Lewes-Sussex-England.-compress.pdf
https://www.zoo.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/alfred-newton-papers.pdf
https://www.historicalrarebirds.info/cat-np/white-winged-lark
Ibis Obituary: Ibis 42: 402 (1900): https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/8628219
Nichol, M. J. 1909. The first British example of the Red-throated Pipit. British Birds 2: 278-9.
Walpole-Bond, J. 1938. A History of Sussex Birds. Vols 1-3 (xix, 381pp; vii, 384pp; vii, 384pp). H. F. G. Witherby Ltd, London.
Author information
Andrew Richford
