Miss Penelope Monk
(1829-1917)
1 August 1861

Volume 4, page 308, sitting number 5302.

[Identified as 'Miss Penelope Monck' in the Silvy daybooks, this is almost certainly Miss Penelope Monk, one of the daughters of James Henry Monk, from 1830/36 the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.]

Penelope Anna Monk was baptised on 8 June 1829 at Peterborough, Northamptonshire. At the time, her father was the Dean of Peterborough and Regis Professor of Greek at Cambridge. The following year he was appointed the Bishop of Gloucester, which was amalagamated with the see of Bristol in 1836. 'He was indefatigable in his opposition to everything appertaining to either Church or State reform, and never absent from his place in Parliament when his party required his services' (Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 13 July 1917). 

She appears on the 1851 census, living with her parents and siblings at Stapleton Palace, the bishop's residence near Bristol. Also present on the night of the census were thirteen servants, including a butler, a footman and a groom.

Her name appears several time during the 1850s and 1860s amongst the published lists of guests attending birthday celebrations for the Queen and Drawing Rooms held at St James's Palace, usually accompanied by her elder sister Mary. 

Miss Monk never married. She appears on the 1911 census living with her elder sister Jane Emily Monk at 4 Cadogan Square, Chelsea. The octogenarian sisters had six live-in servants looking after them. 

Penelope Anna Monk died, aged 88, on 9 April 1917 at 4 Cadogan Square in Chelsea, leaving an estate valued at £30,098. Her sister Jane died three months later, at the age of 93.

[A Silvy portrait of the sitter's brother, Charles James Monk, for 20 years the Member of Parliament for Gloucester, appears on page 14 of this section.]