▶Date of birth:  29 January 1817        Place of birth: Edinburgh

▶Father Sir James Wellwood-Moncrieff    Mother: Ann Robertson

▶Spouse(s):  Martha Holmes    Date(s) of marriage: 13 October 1858      Place(s) of marriage: Bakewell, Derbyshire

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican); Author; HM Inspector of Schools

▶Lifestory: George Robertson Moncrieff was ordained in the Anglican Church and, after several parochial appointments he was appointed an Inspector of Schools, and it was a Schools Inspector that he lived in Pittville in the mid 1870s. He was born in Edinburgh, in 1817, the fourth son of Sir James Wellwood-Moncrieff, 9th baronet, and his wife Ann, daughter of Captain George Robertson RN; both his father and brother James (the 11th baronet) were distinguished Scottish lawyers. Moncrieff attended Edinburgh Academy (winning the Writers to the Signet’s gold medal for the best Latin scholar, and a prize in 1833 for his “Character of Philip of Macedon” in Greek prose), and then matriculated at Balliol College, Oxford in 1834, BA 1838, MA 1846.

He was ordained Deacon in 1840, and Priest (both Chester) in 1841. In 1840 he was licensed Curate of Wallasey, Cheshire, and in 1842 moved on to become Rector of Tattenhall, also in Cheshire, until 1855. His publication, Confirmation records (1848, ed. 2 in 1853), offers a 150-page guide to confirmation candidates and was dedicated to John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury; his Remains of Thomas Byrth: rector of Wallasey; with a memoir of his life also dates from this period and was published in 1851; he was by this year also Chaplain to the Archbishop.

Moncrieff became as Assistant Inspector of Schools in 1850 (when he was the Rector of Tattenhall) and then a full-time Inspector 1856-84, after he had left the rectory. In 1858 he married Martha Holmes, of Tattenhall; they had no children. The inspection of schools took place regionally and consequently Moncrieff moved with the work and lived in Northumberland, Kent, and Gloucestershire.

He became involved in the support of the leading evangelical societies of the day and involved in public ministry (both preaching and lecturing) in these different localities, for example, when he lived in Newcastle upon Tyne, in addition to being an Inspector of Schools, he was from 1858 the Evening Lecturer at St John’s Church. Moncrieff became a Senior Inspector in 1873, and was described as an eloquent preacher, ‘a ripe scholar, and his pulpit abilities are of a high order of merit’ (Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 8 April 1861). His school reports were published by the Committee of Council on Education, and for Moncrieff, ‘the whole aim and end of Christian education was to make every Christian boy and girl Christian men and women’ (Northampton Mercury, 12 June 1886).

From 1875 until 1876 he lived at Clarence Villa, in  Clarence Square, Pittville, and in 1880 he lived in Clifton, Bristol and in 1881 at Westbury on Trym, on the outskirts of Bristol. At the time of the 1891 census he lived with his wife at Warwick.

Moncrieff died at his home, Glen Cora, Hawkwood Road, Boscombe, Hampshire in 1897, at the age of eighty, and was buried at Warwick.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  [uncertain]      Moved from Pittville to: Bristol

▶Date of death: 6 February 1897       Place of death: Boscombe, Hampshire

▶Date of burial:  11 February 1897       Place of burial: Warwick

▶Notes:        ID: 8503

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden