Transcript

of

The Rt. Hon. Lord Monkswell (Robert Collier) [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XLII, (1910), pp. 47-49.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

Robin S. Taylor,  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license, via Wikimedia Commons

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1910 Cullompton meeting. Robert Collier, 2nd Baron Monkswell (26 March 1845 – 22 December 1909), was a Liberal politician. He was briefly Under-Secretary of State for War under The Earl of Rosebery in 1895. As a young man, he was a first-class cricketer active from 1866 to 1867. He was born and died in Chelsea. His biography, with portrait and coat of arms is available here.
The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Robert Collier, Lord Monkswell, who was the son of the first Baron Monkswell, county Devon, was born on 26 March 1846, and succeeded his father in the title in 1886. He was a member of a well-known Devonshire family which for more than two centuries has been closely associated with Plymouth and the district. His grandfather, Mr. John Collier, who represented Plymouth in Parliament from 1832-41, was a merchant and shipowner of that town, and it is remarkable that the business has been in the family without a break for over 230 years, having been originally acquired by Mr. Jonathan Collier in 1676.
Lord Monkswell was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in the First Class of the Law Tripos in 1866. He was called to the Bar in 1869, and became conveyancing barrister to the Treasury. He took a great interest in all kinds of public work. When the London County Council came into existence he was elected at once, and sat in it continuously for eighteen years for the same constituency (Haggerston), and was Chairman of the Council in 1903.
In the House of Lords he passed through Bills to amend the law of libel and the Public Libraries Act, and in 1891 carried through the second reading a measure to amend and consolidate the law of copyright, a matter in which he took a deep interest; six years later he brought in a short Copyright Bill. He was also connected with measures for the industrial training of soldiers and the prohibition of children entering public-houses. Lord Monkswell was Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Miners; he was a member of Lord Dunraven's Committee on the Sweating System, of Lord Sandhurst's on Metropolitan Hospitals, and Lord Hobhouse's on the Law of Copyhold.
Lord Monkswell was a great lover of the beauties of nature, and greatly admired Devonshire, where a great part of his life was spent. Next to that he had a romantic affection for Switzerland, which country he visited again and again. Otherwise he did not travel very widely, though he spent some months, thirty years ago, in America and travelled over a good part of the United States.
Though he did not devote much attention to writing, he had a good taste in literature and was no mean poet, and once wrote a novel entitled Kate Greville. He was also one of the Managing Committee of the Authors' Club.
Brought up among artists, he displayed a great knowledge of pictures. The Colliers are an old Devonshire family who have always been famous in art, and the Hon. John Collier, a brother of the deceased peer, maintains the tradition.
He was a most conscientious head of the family, and always endeavoured to keep in touch with all its members.
He became a life member of the Association in 1892, and was its President in 1908 for the meeting at Newton Abbot.
He married Mary, third daughter of J. A. Hardcastle,. Esq., of Woodlands, Beaminster.
Lord Monkswell died on 22 December, 1909, and was interred at Beaminster, Dorset.