Hey all!
A very looooong post this one, but it’s a bit of a ‘find the link’ puzzle that may interest some of you.
So I’ve managed to trace the MONCKTON branch of my family tree to the area between Rock, Worcestershire and Pattingham in Staffordshire, the latter being where my family line was based for at least three generations.
I know from reading some of the history of the area that the most famous Monckton locally is Edward Monckton, wealthy landowner and Whig MP. I’d previously discounted any obvious connection with him primarily due to conflicting social status (the Moncktons of my tree are mostly agricultural labourers as far as I’ve gone back, even overlapping Edwards own life). But I randomly came across an archive record showing a property deal regarding land in Pattingham, and it made me wonder again about a possible connection.
The oldest member of this particular line that I have in my tree is a William. Place and date of birth currently unknown, but believed to have married an Elizabeth HANDLEY on the 4th February 1798 in Rock Worcestershire. One quirk is that William is not listed as Monckton, but MONK.
He has a number of children with Elizabeth, all baptised in Rock, all listed as MONK:
Mary Monk - 12 May 1800
Edward Monk - 9 October 1802
John Monk - 1 January 1805 (I believe this to be my 3xgreat-grandfather)
Thomas Monk - 4 November 1806
James Monk - 16 April 1809
I’ve also found James in the 1841 census - living with another elder brother William, born c1799. He is not listed as being baptised at Rock, unlike his siblings.
Now the brothers seem to have all moved some distance to the north into staffordshire in adulthood. They all also begin to be listed as variations of ‘MONKTON’, which makes me wonder if it was either a collective name change or whether ‘MONK was some sort of administrative mistake or shorthand.
My 3x great-grandfather John is listed as living with his first wife Jane (neé TAYLOR), first in Hore Hill, Patshull (1841 census) and later in Jane’s home village of Pattingham (1851 census onwards). William, Thomas and James are all listed as having lived in Upper Penn.
John living in Patshull is another potential link with the Moncktons of the more famous Edward’s line - the local estate of Patshull Hall was until 1848 owned by the PIGOT family, closely linked to the elder Edward Monckton’s family. He had married Sarah Pigot, the illegitimate daughter of George Pigot, on 14th March 1776. There is also a link between the two families in the Pattingham land deal of 1815. As well as Edward there is a John Monckton listed, who I believe to be Edwards elder brother (1739 - 1830). Alongside John is listed his daughter Mary Ann who had married the 3rd Baron George Pigot in 1796.
So this is where this line of my family currently stands. I have no firm link between my line and the landed line, but there seems to be some circumstantial evidence of a possible connection. I have no idea why my family would have moved en-mass from Worcestershire to Staffordshire. My 3x great-grandfather John Monckton moved up to Patshall (to which a lot of people with his surname were linked via the Pigots) after marrying a woman from Pattingham (where people sharing his surname had been landowners at some point). At this point, it feels like it would be weirder for there not to be a link of some description!
I have no idea why the whole family in Rock was listed as MONK. It could have been an error, but I feel an error like that would be unlikely to persist over a whole generation and multiple baptisms. Was William, the father of the Monk/Monckton brothers an illegitimate child or a shamed family member? Was he living in some kind of exile from relatives to the north? Conversely, were the Monk family perhaps nothing to do with the Moncktons? A separate family from the south trying to cash in on a more famous name? It’s a possibility, though I doubt that the entire family would agree to such a spurious name change.
I suppose the key to this mystery is hunting down record of the William Monk who married Elizabeth Headley. His eldest son William wasn’t baptised in Rock, which raises the question of where they were during that time. Who were William senior’s Parents? I guess if I can find answers to these questions, then it’ll help unravel the mystery.
Phew, that was a long thread, but I hope it’s interesting reading to people researching local Staffordshire history. If anyone has any clues, information or leads on any of the questions here, or any records that show potential links I might have missed for my family, please let me know. All help gratefully received!
