Monro , family , of Hadley

The Monro family of Hadley were a cadet branch of the Munro baronets of Foulis. They settled in London in the late seventeenth century, providing a series of distinguished doctors who ran Bethlem Hospital throughout the following century, when the care of lunatics was far from fashionable. They also owned two private asylums, Brook House, Clapton, and the Palace, Much Hadham (ACC/1063/049-057 and 164-5).

James, the second son of Dr John Monro (1715-1791), entered the East India Company's service, becoming captain of an East Indiaman, and most of this archive consists of letters written by himself, his sons and his grandsons. Apart from those of Captain James himself there is a series from his eldest son James, who became a writer with the East India Company in 1806; from his son Edward who went to India; another group of papers relating to his son George, a midshipman who was killed in action on board the "Menelaus" in 1812; and numerous other letters and papers relating to this same generation of the family.

The youngest son of James's first marriage, Cecil Monro (1803-1878), entered the law, eventually becoming chief registrar of the Court of Chancery, and it was he who finally inherited the family home which Captain James had bought at Hadley. He was an antiquarian of some repute, editing The Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou for the Camden Society in 1863; he was zealous in collecting details of his family history, which he incorporated into a "Family Book" (ACC/1063/001). There are also several documents relating to the disputed entail created by Sir Harry Munro of Foulis in 1776, which probably owe their preservation to Cecil Monro. The latter married Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Knight Erskine of Pittodrie, Aberdeenshire, which accounts for the presence of a few documents relating to that estate.

The largest group of letters are those written by Cecil's three sons, Cecil James (1833-1882), Charles (1835-1908), and Kenneth (1818-1862). The letters to their parents began when they were at preparatory school, and in the cases of Cecil and Kenneth continue until their respective deaths. All three were sent to Harrow and their letters at this period throw a vivid light on school life in the early Victorian era (ACC/1063/966-1146). Both the older boys went on to Cambridge, but Kenneth, who was not academically inclined, joined the Army and his letters continue from various camps in England and then from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was posted in 1857 (ACC/1063/257-579). The climate there undermined his health and he returned home to die of consumption at Hadley, aged 24.

The rest of the letters centre round his eldest brother Cecil, who read classics and Mathematics at Cambridge and then read for the Bar. Before he could take up a career, symptoms of the family consumption manifested themselves in him too, and dictated that his winters be spent abroad in the more salubrious climates of Madeira, North Africa, or the south of France. His letters home to the family are full of the trials of an invalid expatriate: the difficulties of obtaining suitable lodgings, the vagaries of climates, the dependence upon unreliable mails from home, and the intolerable boredom. He was not, however, self-pitying, and the last-named problem he tackled by teaching himself languages, writing articles, and corresponding with learned men on a variety of subjects (including theology, classics, philosophy, mathematics physics, linguistics and politics). His correspondences included J. C. Maxwell, professor of experimental physics at Cambridge; Darwin's son-in-law Richard Litchfield; William Donkin, professor of astronomy at Oxford; C.M Ingleby, the Shakespearean critic; and Charles Tawney, registrar of Calcutta University. He spent the last years of his life at Hadley, a semi-invalid, dying in 1882 four years after his father. The letters virtually cease at this date, but there are a few written to Charles, the last just before his death in 1906.