author
Horace Woollaston Monckton
1857–1931
A barrister by training and a naturalist by passion, he spent much of his life exploring the geology and plant life of southern England. His writing brings together careful local knowledge, scientific curiosity, and a real affection for Berkshire.
1 Audiobook
Berkshire
by Horace Woollaston Monckton
About the author
Born in 1857, Horace Woollaston Monckton was educated at Wellington College and later called to the Bar, practising on the Midland Circuit and at the Parliamentary Bar. Alongside his legal career, he developed a lasting interest in natural history, especially after early visits to the Yorkshire coast and the gault cliffs at Folkestone drew him toward geology.
Monckton became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1882 and later a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1892. He is remembered as both a geologist and botanist, and he also contributed articles to the Dictionary of National Biography. His published work includes Berkshire and, with William Whitaker and John Hopwood Blake, The Geology of the Country Around Reading.
He lived much of his life at Wellington, Berkshire, while also keeping chambers in the Temple. Monckton died on January 14, 1931. Even from this brief record, he comes across as a deeply committed local scholar whose legal training and love of the natural world worked side by side.