Monk Tree

HENRY MONK and MARY EUSTACE (6)

 

HENRY MONK came from a farming family in Buckinghamshire. The family were concentrated in Stone, a village adjacent to Waddesdon, where we find Henry later in life.

He was baptised in Stone on 26 Apr 1786, the son of an older Henry Monk and Elizabeth Woodman. He was the oldest of ten children.

Henry Monk’s father was buried at St John the Baptist, Stone, on 7 Mar 1814, when his son was 28. As the eldest son, Henry would have been his principal heir. Despite this, he did not take on the family farm in Stone, but farmed at Sheepcote Hill, just across the boundary in the parish of Waddesdon. His father may have set him up in this farm before he died.

He was a dairy farmer.

 

MARY EUSTACE. Mary was Henry’s first cousin.

She says in the 1851 census that she was born in Ellesborough, a village 5 miles south of Aylesbury, around 1786. In fact, she was born in Stone, like Henry.

Baptism. Stone.
1786 Apr  Mary daughter of Farmer and Mary Ustes.

Ustes is an unusual spelling of the surname Eustace.

We might have thought that Farmer Eustace was an honorific title, but Farmer was his baptismal name.

Her mother was Mary Monk, whose home was Stone

Soon after Mary junior’s birth, the family moved to Ellesborough, 7 miles east, at the foot of the Chilterns. Mary would have been too young to remember her birthplace and assumed she was born in Ellesborough like her siblings.

She was ­­­the oldest in the family, with two younger brothers and two sisters.

She grew up at Grove Farm in Ellesborough. This was a moated site, with the house on a mound within the ditch.

She was only eight when her father died. Her younger brother Henry was heir to Grove Farm, but during his minority their mother Mary ran the farm. She came from a farming family. In a survey of 1798 she had 9 draught horses, 2 wagons and 3 carts. This was the largest total in Ellesborough. The Eustaces were a well-off family.

By the middle of the next century, we find her brother Henry still there, farming 200 acres and employing 8 labourers.

Mary was 29 when she married her first cousin Henry Monk who was farming at Waddesdon, 9 miles from Ellesborough. The family connection explains how he came to choose a bride from so far away. Henry had also been born in Stone, but had moved further north to take over his own farm.

The year after his father’s death, Henry Monk married Mary Eustace in Ellesborough.

Marriage. Ellesborough.
1815 Aug 3  Henry Monk of Waddesdon and Mary Eustace of Ellesborough.
Witnesses: E Eustace and Edwd Monk.
They were married by licence.
The witness E Eustace may be Mary’s sister Elizabeth. Edward Monk was Henry’s brother, the second in the family.

 

Their first child Henry junior was baptised at St Michael and all Angels in Waddesdon on 27 Jun 1816, the son of Henry Monk, farmer, and his wife Mary, of Sheepcote Hill, Waddesdon.

Waddesdon is on the main road from Aylesbury, 6 m to the NW. Sheepcote Hill lies SE of the village, halfway between Waddesdon and Stone.

Henry junior was the oldest of their children, and their only son.

He was followed by at least three daughters. They were baptised, not in Waddesdon, but in Stone. The position of Sheepcote Hill made it easy for the family to use either church.

Baptisms. Stone.
1818 Sep 30  Mary  res. Waddesdon  Yeoman
1820 May 14   Elizabeth    res: Waddesdon   Yeoman
1821 Jul 22 Henrietta  res: Waddesdon  Farmer

We have no further evidence of Elizabeth, but we know that there was a daughter Sarah, born around 1820, whose baptism we do not have.

 

The Monks owned property beyond Stone and Waddesdon. On the 12 Aug 1819 we have a release of rights of way concerning a house in Temple Square, Aylesbury, between:

(1) John Marshall of Amersham, gent, (2) Rev. William Oddie the Younger and John Grace, joint executors of the will of Eliseus Webb, dec’d, (3) Elizabeth Monk of Stone, widow, and (4) Henry Monk of Sheepcote Hill, Waddesdon. Elizabeth was Henry’s mother. [1]

This cites the agreement made some years previously between the then proprietors of the two adjoining messuages, now in the respective occupations of Edward Monk and Joseph Russell.

 

On 27 July 1820 we have the following mortgage.[2]

Mortgage for securing £500 and interest at 5%
Property in Temple Square and Rickfords Hill, Aylesbury
(1) Elizabeth Monk of Stone, widow and relict of Henry Monk, late of Stone, yeo., dec’d., and daughter of John Woodman of Stone, dec’d., and Henry Monk of Sheepcote Hill in parish of Waddesdon, dairyman, eldest son and heir at law of said Henry Monk dec’d
(2) Eliseus Webb of Bierton, yeo
John Hyriott is the occupier of adjoining messuage to the south.
Covenant to keep the property insured and repaired

In 1829 Henry Monk was one of two churchwardens at St Michael and all Angels, Waddesdon.

In 1830 there was an outbreak of machine-breaking in Waddesdon and other Buckinghamshire parishes. Property destroyed in Waddesdon included a drainage plough and a chaff-cutting machine. The farmer concerned said the chaff -cuttting machine needed three men to work it, so it was not putting people out of employment. On another farm, a thrashing machine was wrecked by a crowd of 100 men. On yet another farm, a winnowing machine was the victim. In the neighbouring parish of Stone, the crowd destroyed all the machines of Mr Monk they could find. This was probably John Monk, Henry’s brother. Henry Monk gave evidence of the machine-breaking.

In Waddesdon alone, 28 men were committed for trial, 8 were admitted to bail, and 7 were discharged. There were similar numbers in neighbouring parishes as the increasing mechanisation of farms threatened the livelihoods of agricultural workers.

The reason Henry Monk’s farm was not targeted was probably because it was a dairy farm, which did not have the labour-saving agricultural machinery.

On 22 Apr 1837 there is an assignment of mortgage between the following parties. [3]

(1) Charles Hoare of Great Missenden, farmer, and James Potter of the same, auctioneer, (2) Thomas Thorne the Younger of Bierton, farmer, and Mary his wife late Mary Hoare, spinster, (3) Henry Monk of Sheepcote Hill in Waddesdon, dairyman, (4) John Monk of Stone, yeoman, and (5) Richard Rose of Aylesbury, gent
House in Temple Square, Aylesbury.
Assignment to (5) in trust for (4)

John Monk is probably Henry’s brother.

 

There was yet another document relating to the house in Aylesbury.

Lease and release. House in Temple Square.
21, 22 Apr 1837.
(1) Henry Monk of Sheepcote Hill in the parish of Waddesdon, dairyman, eldest son and heir at law of Henry Monk late of Stone, yeoman, dec’d. intestate, who hath survived Elizabeth Monk, widow [endorsed on previous deed] his mother, now also dec’d.
(2) John Monk of Stone, yeo.
Messuage in Temple Street now in the occupation of Thomas Collett, the messuage of James Henry Marshall on the north and messuage in occupation of Thomas Woodman on south.

The 1841 census finds the Monks with their son Henry, but not their daughters.

1841 Census. Eythrope, Waddesdon, Aylesbury.
Henry Monk       50        Farmer        Y
Mary Monk         50                           Y
Henry Monk       20                           Y
James Southam    15        M S             Y
Mary Dearing       20        F S              Y

MS  and FS are male and female servants.
Ages have been rounded down to the nearest 5. The older Henry was 54 and the younger 23.
Eythrope is in the SE of the parish, adjacent to Stone.

Their daughters Henrietta and Sarah Monk are staying at Grove Farm, Ellesborough with their uncle Henry Eustace.

 

In 1842, Henry Monk and George Humphrey were appointed Overseers of the Poor for Waddesdon. It was their job to oversee the expenditure of the Poor Rate for those in need.

1851 Census. Shapcott Hill, Waddesdon.
Henry Monk       Head    Mar      65      Farmer of 250 acres           Stone
Employing 9 Labourers
Mary Monk         Wife    Mar      65                                                Ellesborough
Henry Monk       Son      U         33                                                Waddesdon
Mary Norwood    Serv     U         10      General Sern                      Halcot
Jos Bowden         Serv     U         21      General Sern F S                Waddesdon

 

Mary Monk of Sheepcothill was buried in the Monks’ ancestral home of Stone on 2 Mar 1853. She was aged 66.

Henry died three years later. He too was buried in Stone, on 30 June 1856, aged 70.

 

 [1]. Buckinghamshire Archives D-X68/25
[2]  Buckinghamshire Archives D-X68/23
[3]  Buckinghamshire Archives D-X68/31

 

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7. EUSTACE-MONK

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