Known in her early years as Lily, she was a witness to at least two of her sisters’ weddings before marrying, in 1909, Frederick James Monk, a stationer’s Card Cutter. He suffered ill-health after serving in the Remount Company during WW1, but continued to work. They had five sons between 1910-1919. What records did they leave to tell their tale?

A schoolgirl in London

Lavinia Stocking, known as Lily, was born on 9 April 1888, the tenth of my 2xgreat grandparents’ children. She was 14 when her brother Alexander, the youngest of what was a total of 19 children, was born. She was baptised at St Mark’s, Camberwell on 11 June, the family address shown as 21 Astley Street, Old Kent Road. Not one I’d come across before.

Extract from parish register of St Mark’s, Camberwell (Ancestry)

By the time she was three years old, in the 1891 census, she is at home at 44 Bowles Road with her parents and ten siblings, ranging in age from six months to 16 years. Like many of her brothers and sisters, she was enrolled at Rolls Road School, first attending the Infant School in 1893, and transferring to the junior school in 1895. In 1901, she was one of the witnesses to her sister Emma Mary Ann’s marriage to James Mayers, and in 1908, to that of her eldest sister Catherine Alice Stocking to Charles Hall.

Marriage, family and the war years

On 4 December 1909, she married Frederick James Monk, a Stationer’s Card Cutter. The transcript at FreeReg records him as 27, six years her senior, the son of Anderson Monk, a Labourer (deceased). Bride and groom both give her parents’ address of 18 Beechfield Road as their residence at the time of marriage. Their witnesses were her two eldest siblings, my greatgrandfather James Aaron Stocking, and his sister Catherine Alice Hall.

Their first child, also called Frederick James Monk, was born five months later on 6 May 1910. The census taken the following year enumerated them at 323A Stanstead Road, Lewisham. Frederick James Monk senior was working as a Card Cutter for a stationery firm. He very precisely states that they have been married one year and five months. He is 30 and his wife Lavinia is 22. Their second son, James Alexander Alfred Monk, was born four months later, on 3 August 1911. A third son, Albert Edward Monk, was born on 11 December 1914.

Family life was interrupted by WW1, in which several of Lily’s brothers and brothers-in-law served. On 2 January 1917, Frederick James Monk senior was conscripted and joined the Army Service Corps. By then, the family was living at 14 Beechfield Road, close to many others of Lavinia’s family. His WW1 Army Pension papers at Ancestry show details of all their children born before, during and after his period of service:

Extract from WW1 pension and service record of Frederick James Monk (Ancestry)

He served as a Groom with the ASC, part of the ‘Remount’ effort conducting horses to and from the war zones in France. By the end of his first year in the Army, his brother-in-law Aaron Archibald Stocking had been killed in action; Lily must have been very anxious for her husband’s safety. By August 1918 he states his general health is ‘bad’:

Extract from WW1 pension and service record of Frederick James Monk (Ancestry)

In October 1919, he complains of rheumatism in his arms and legs and states that he was treated at Lewisham Military hospital and Brook War Hospital Woolwich. It is not clear what, if any, pension he was granted.

Lily’s father James Thomas Stocking died in 1920. The following year, she and Frederick are enumerated in the 1921 census at 14 Beechfield Road, Catford. He is back in his pre-war occupation as Card Cutter to Baddeley Brothers, Stationers of Moor Lane, London E6 (for which my grandmother Jessie Ephgrave and her sisters also worked in the 1920s). All five of their children are listed, aged 2-11, along with various others of the Stocking family. Two of their sons married in the run-up to WW2 (the eldest, Frederick James junior, in 1936, and Albert Edward in 1937).

By the time The 1939 Register was compiled, they have moved across the road from no. 14, to 13 Beechfield Road. Frederick senior is working as a Warehouseman for a printer. Within his household are his wife Lavinia and unmarried sons James, Sidney and Leslie. In a separate household in the same building is Frederick James Monk junior, his wife Winifred and probably (record redacted) their daughter Carol, who was just a few months old. Son Albert Edward Monk and his wife Lydia were living in St Pancras, London, where he was working as a Factory Manager. A month after The Register was taken, youngest son Leslie Anderson Monk, who had been working as a Boot and Shoe Warehouseman, joined the Royal Artillery (Royal Sussex Regiment) Reg no 6402328.

Frederick James Monk senior did not live to see the aftermath of the war. He died on 18 February 1945 at Redhill County Hospital, Edgware, of heart disease. He was 63 years old.

Extract from digital image death record for Frederick James Monk 1945 (GRO)

His home address is 77 Rugby Avenue, Wembley, a Printer (Journeyman) by trade. The informant was his son Alfred Edward Monk, who must have been visiting when his father fell ill, as his normal address is given as 45 Gowthorpe, Selby, Yorkshire. I do not know exactly when Frederick and Lily moved to Wembley, but 77 Rugby Avenue became the family home throughout the late 1940s-1950s, with electoral registers showing Frederick James Monk junior living there with his wife, his mother, and brother Leslie and family.

Lily Monk remained a widow for over 20 years. Her death was registered, aged 80, in the Wycombe district of Buckinghamshire in the Jul-Sep quarter of 1968. Did she move to Wycombe to join family?

The five Monk sons

Frederick James Monk junior (1910-1983): Heating Engineer, moved to Buckinghamshire

On 11 April 1936, aged 26, he married Winifred Amy Charge, who was 22. Both give his parents’ address of 14 Beechfield Road as their residence. Frederick was working as a Fitter; his father is described as a Newspaper Printer, so perhaps by then he had left Baddeley Brothers. Her father was Samuel George Rayburn Charge, a Foreman. The witnesses were SGR Charge (her father?) and AE Monk, Fred’s brother. Electoral registers show they initially moved to Glenwood Road, Catford, but by the outbreak of WW2, they were with his parents, brothers and their baby daughter at 13 Beechfield Road; he was working as a Heating Pipe Fitter. I haven’t found any WW2 records for him. By 1947 they had moved to 77 Rugby Avenue, Wembley, where his parents had been living at the time of his father’s death in 1945.

Throughout the 1960s, The Buckinghamshire Examiner carries accounts of their daughter Carol winning awards from the Cavendish School of Ballroom Dancing. In the Summer of 1963, she married Stirling Terence Maguire (1938-2017), another ballroom dancing champion, in Amersham, Bucks. She had two children, and went on to become a well-known home economics teacher. It may be that Lily Monk, Frederick’s widowed mother, moved from Wembley to be near her son and family in Buckinghamshire.

Frederick James Monk junior’s death was registered in the last quarter of 1983, in Buckinghamshire. His widow is pictured in 1999 (right) receiving health care advice for the over 65s at an event in Chesham Town Hall (Buckinghamshire Examiner, 23 April 1999, FindMyPast). She was 85 at the time, and looking quite sprightly.

Her death was registered in Chiltern, Bucks, in 2006; she would have been 92 years old. Electoral registers and other newspaper articles suggest that her descendents continue to live in Buckinghamshire, although one granddaughter moved to Sussex.

James Alexander Alfred Monk (1911-1986): Heating Engineer

Like his older brother Frederick, James lived with his family at Beechfield Road, Catford (nos 13 and 14) until the outbreak of WW2. The 1939 Register shows him with an identical occupation to that of his brother: Hot Water Heating and Domestic Pipe Fitter’s Mate (Heavy Worker). In 1942, he married Ladies’ hairdressing assistant Grace Winifred Lily Locker in Willesden, London. In 1946 and again in 1949, they are registered to vote at 37 Kilmorie Road, Lewisham. Living with him and Grace are Alexander E Stocking and his wife, Florence. He was his mother Lily’s brother, and therefore James’ uncle (although he was only nine years older). A few years later, in 1952, the couple are registered to vote at the same address as Grace’s parents – 44 Rugby Road, Wembley, not far from where his own mother and siblings were living at no. 77. They remained there until 1957.

By 1958, James and Winifred are registered alone at 23 Rutland Road, Harrow, and are still there in 1964. They had two children, a son and a daughter.

Unusually I have been unable to find anything much more about the family until James Alfred Alexander Monk’s death was registered in Essex in 1986. His probate record shows his address as 4 Holtyng, Benfleet, Essex. His widow lived until the age of 102: Mrs Grace Winifred Lily Monk’s death was registered on 29 November 2022 in the City of London – possibly in a hospital.

Albert Edward Monk (1914-1971): A move to Yorkshire

Born on 11 December 1914, just a few months into WW1, Albert Edward Monk lived with his family at 14 Beechfield Road until the time of his marriage in 1937. He married Lydia Beatrice Thomas in Lewisham in the last quarter of that year. At the outbreak of WW2, they are living with her parents, Tailors Robert and his wife Beatrice, in St Pancras, London, at 20 Fitzroy Square.

The Thomas family surname has initially been recorded as Tomassini; this has been crossed out and replaced with Thomas in her mother’s case. Albert Edward Monk is working as a Factory Manager, his wife as a Secretary. Before their marriage, in the 1921 census, her whole family has the surname Tomassini, and her father Robert’s birthplace is shown as Perugia, Italy (his full name was Roberto S G Tomassini). His wife – born Beatrice Brown Shrimpton – was from Kentish Town and both their children were born in London. Both parents are working as tailors.

By 1945, Albert and Lydia have moved to Barkston Ash (Selby) in Yorkshire, at first living at 45 Gowthorpe, and then making a longer-term home throughout the 1950s at 54 West Park. When Albert’s father died in 1945, Albert Edward Monk was the informant of his death in London, giving his own address as 45 Gowthorpe, Selby, Yorks.

The couple do not appear to have had any children and continued to live in Yorkshire until their deaths: Albert Edward Monk died in Howden, Yorkshire in 1971; his widow Lydia Beatrice Monk outlived him by 20 years, dying in Dunnington, Yorkshire, in 1991.

Sidney Francis Monk (1917-1994): A long-term home in Bexley, Kent

The fourth son of five, Sidney Francis Monk was born on 15 May 1917 in Catford, at the family home in Beechfield Road. He was living with his parents and siblings at 13 Beechfield Road at the time of The 1939 Register, when he is working as a Traveller for dressmakers’ trimmings. In the first quarter of 1947, he married Norah Emily Pragnell in Lewisham. Two years later, they are living at 90 Harcourt Avenue, Chislehurst, Bexley with Herbert George Monk and his wife Hilda. Herbert was Sidney’s much older half-cousin, born in 1892, the illegitimate son of Rhoda Jane Monk, his father’s sister. He had married Guernsey-born Hilda Maud Veal in around 1931.

Sidney Francis Monk and Norah had two children sons. In 1951, Sidney and Norah are registered to vote at 318 Stanstead Road, Lewisham, in the same household as her parents. By 1963 they are living in their own house, at 71 Howard Avenue, Bexley.  This seems to have been their long-term home, as Norah Emily Monk died there on 21 March 1984. Her widower died there a decade later, on 2 November 1994. I haven’t been able to find out anything further about their two sons.

Leslie Anderson Monk (1919-2003):

Fred and Lily Monk’s youngest son was born shortly after his father returned from military service. He was the only one of the five sons to be given his grandfather’s forename as a middle name (Anderson Monk had died in 1901). At the outbreak of the second world war, Leslie Anderson Monk was at home at 13 Beechfield Road, Catford, working at a Boot and Shoe Warehouse. A month later, Ancestry’s WW2 Royal Artillery Tracer Card collection shows that he signed up to join the Royal Sussex Regiment, regimental number 6402328.

Leslie Anderson Monk Royal Artillery Tracer card (Ancestry)

I don’t understand all the abbreviations, but it looks as though he served throughout the war, released to the reserves in January 1946. He seems to have had some leave, as at the end of 1943, he married Gwendoline D Gambrill in Hendon. She had been born in Plympton, Devon, in 1922.

The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. By 1951 they have moved in with Leslie’s widowed mother Lavinia (Lily) Monk, his older brother Frederick James Monk and the latter’s wife Winifred, at 77 Rugby Avenue, Wembley. I have not found anything further about the family until a registration of death in Plympton, Devon, for Leslie Anderson Monk in December 2003. He was 84. Electoral registers at the time place him at 31 Laira Park Road, Plymouth. Google Street View shows it as a pleasant semi-detached bungalow in the East of Plymouth, close to a large sports field. His widow died in Plymouth on 9 November 2015, aged 93.