He married Anne, daughter of Bolton Waller, of Shannon Grove and Castletown on 15 January 1835. It is widely noted that eldest son Thomas Bewley Monsell, a Lieutenant in the 19th Regiment, died on the way to the Crimean War, aged 18, in a shipwreck off Italy. However, the date of death given by newspapers (February 16th) apparently predates the late-April fire and sinking of the SS Croesus offshore from the Monastery of San Fruttuoso Monastery near Genoa. The eldest daughter Elizabeth Isabella died in Torquay at the age of 28 in 1861. Another daughter, Jane Diana, married the Rev. C. W. Furse in 1859. Through his son William Thomas Monsell, a magistrate and inspector of facturers, Monsell was grandfather to the artist Elinor Darwin (née Monsell).[4][5][6]
He was responsible for the building or rebuilding of three of his churches: Ramoan, at Ballycastle, County Antrim, St Jude, Englefield Green, during his incumbency at Egham, and St Nicolas' Church, Guildford. While inspecting the rebuilding of the latter, Monsell fell from a boulder, and subsequently died in 1875 from an infected wound.[1]
Monsell was a prolific hymnist. He published eleven volumes of poems and about 300 hymns.
His books include: Hymns and Miscellaneous Poems (1837), Parish Musings: In verse (1850), Spiritual Songs for the Sundays and Holy Days Throughout the Year (1859), Hymns of Love and Praise for the Church's Year (1863), Our New Vicar (1867), Litany Hymns (1870).[1]
^Lodge's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage of the British Empire, John Lodge, 1907, p. 707
^The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971 Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages with Genealogies and Arms, L. G. Pine, Heraldry Today, London, 1972, p. 115
^Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th ed., 2003, vol. 2, p. 2038
