Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Monro, Charles Henry
MONRO, CHARLES HENRY (1835–1908), author, born in London on 17 March 1835, was second of three sons of Cecil Monro, chief registrar of the court of chancery, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Henry Howe Knight-Erskine of Pittodrie. Alexander Monro [q. v.], principal of Edinburgh University in 1660, was an ancestor, six of whose descendants are already commemorated in this Dictionary. His older brother, Cecil James, a man of extraordinary powers, was incapacitated by phthisis soon after his election to a fellowship at Trinity in 1855. He younger brother, Kenneth, a brilliant artillery officer, died in early manhood of phthisis in Nova Scotia. Charles Henry entered Harrow in 1847, proceeded to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as Sayer scholar in 1853, graduated B.A. in 1857 with a first class in classics, and in the same year was elected to a fellowship, of which he resigned the emoluments in 1897. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1863, he did not practise, but continued his study of law, though the work was hampered by ill-health, necessitating much residence abroad. From 1872 to 1896 he was law lecturer at his college. In 1900 he represented Cambridge University at the 500th anniversary of the second foundation of the University of Cracow.
In 1891 he published an annotated text and translation of the title 'Locati Conducti' in Justinian's 'Digest'; in 1893 'De Furtis'; in 1896 'Ad legem Aquiliam'; in 1900 'De Adquirendo Dominio'; and in 1902 'Pro Socio.' Meanwhile he had begun the heavy task of translating the whole 'Digest.' One volume of this work appeared in 1904 and another in 1909, alter his death, covering, altogether, about one-fourth of the book. His work was marked by great acuteness and independence of judgment and accuracy of scholarship. He had a peculiar gift for translation, and his rendering of the 'Digest,' so far as it proceeded, was much superior to any earlier attempt.
Monro, who was an accomplished linguist, and was specially interested in Celtic, died, unmarried, at Eastbourne on 23 Feb. 1906, and was buried there. By his will he left a large sum to his college, which has perpetuated his memory by a Monro fellowship, a Monro lectureship in Celtic, a Monro endowment to the Squire law library in Cambridge, and a Monro extension to the college library.
[Venn. Biogr. Hist. of Gonv. and Caius Coll., ii. 310; memorial notices in The Caius, xvii. 161; Burke's Landed Gentry, s.v. Knight-Erskine; Cass, Hist. of Monken Hadley, p. 181; notices of members of the family in this Dictionary; school college records; communications from friends; personal knowledge.]