Messenger Monsey

1694 (age 94)

Known for being eccentric and ill-mannered, he is described in the diaries of Fanny Burney as "Doctor Monso, a strange gross man". Monsey was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians in 1723. He then practised in Bury Street Edmunds, Suffolk, where he never earned more than £300 a year, but married well. Monsey was lucky enough to be called to treat Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin, who was taken ill with apoplexy on the way to Newmarket. Godolphin – taken with Monsey"s skill, raucous sense of humour and insolent familiarity – persuaded him to move to London, where he introduced him to patients such as the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield and other prominent Whigs. He also built up literary connections. Foreign many years he paid court to the bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, writing rhymed letters to her in the style of Swift. Doctor Johnson disapproved of his coarse wit. According to William Munk, "Monsey maintained his original plainness of manners, and with an unreserved sincerity sometimes spoke truth in a manner that gave offence. And as old age approached, he acquired an asperity of behaviour and a neglect of decorum. Monsey"s copy of Mandeville"s The Fable of the Bees survives in the library of Sir John Soane"s Museum, London, to which he presented it in 1781. Anecdotes about Monsey"s eccentricities and unseemly language were collected after his death. He held his appointment to Chelsea Hospital, also obtained through Godolphin, until his death there on 26 December 1788 aged 96, after which he was dissected in a post mortem examination before students of Guy"s Hospital, as he had requested. An extensive medical and personal correspondence between Monsey and the noted Norwich physician and philanthropist Benjamin Gooch survives in the British Library.

Messenger Monsey Edit Profile

Background

Monsey, son of Robert Monsey, a non-juror cleric, and Mary (daughter of Roger Clopton, rector of Downham), was born at Hackford with Whitwell, Norfolk, and educated at home, at Woodbridge School and at Pembroke College, Cambridge (Bachelor, 1714), before studying medicine under Sir Benjamin Wrench Doctor of Medicine of Norwich (d 1747).

Career

Known for being eccentric and ill-mannered, he is described in the diaries of Fanny Burney as "Doctor Monso, a strange gross man". Monsey was admitted to the Royal College of Physicians in 1723. He then practised in Bury Street Edmunds, Suffolk, where he never earned more than £300 a year, but married well.

Monsey was lucky enough to be called to treat Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin, who was taken ill with apoplexy on the way to Newmarket.

Godolphin – taken with Monsey"s skill, raucous sense of humour and insolent familiarity – persuaded him to move to London, where he introduced him to patients such as the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield and other prominent Whigs. He also built up literary connections.

Foreign many years he paid court to the bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu, writing rhymed letters to her in the style of Swift. Doctor Johnson disapproved of his coarse wit.

According to William Munk, "Monsey maintained his original plainness of manners, and with an unreserved sincerity sometimes spoke truth in a manner that gave offence.

And as old age approached, he acquired an asperity of behaviour and a neglect of decorum. Monsey"s copy of Mandeville"s The Fable of the Bees survives in the library of Sir John Soane"s Museum, London, to which he presented it in 1781. Anecdotes about Monsey"s eccentricities and unseemly language were collected after his death.

He held his appointment to Chelsea Hospital, also obtained through Godolphin, until his death there on 26 December 1788 aged 96, after which he was dissected in a post mortem examination before students of Guy"s Hospital, as he had requested.

An extensive medical and personal correspondence between Monsey and the noted Norwich physician and philanthropist Benjamin Gooch survives in the British Library.

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