Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/654

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Mond
634
Monkhouse

the condition of his workpeople. In his address to students at the opening of the Schorlemmer laboratory at Owens College, Manchester, on 3 May 1895 (Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind. xiv. 552), he insisted on the importance to industrial chemists of a training in pure science. None of his great benefactions were devoted to the teaching of applied science. He was inclined to deny that such teaching was of any value in the training of a chemist (Nasini, see bibliography below). In 1896 he gave 100,000l. under a special trust to found and equip the Davy-Faraday Laboratory, in a house next to the Royal Institution, for research in chemistry and physics; and by his will he left two sums of 50,000l. to the Royal Society and to the University of Heidelberg respectively, for the encouragement of research and other purposes. Between 1892 and his death he gave to the Royal Society sums amounting to 16,000l. for the continuance and improvement of the society's catalogue of scientific papers. In 1908 he founded a biennial prize of 400l. for chemistry at the Accademia dei Lincei (of which he had been elected an honorary member in 1899) in memory of his friend, the chemist, Stanislao Cannizzaro. He left to the town of Cassel a sum of 20,000l., together with 5000l. for a Jewish charitable foundation. In his lifetime he made large gifts for charitable purposes, but as a rule these remained anonymous.

From 1892 onwards Mond formed a remarkable collection of pictures, mainly early Italian, of which a detailed description was published by Dr. J. P. Richter, who acted as Mond's adviser (The Mond Collection, an Appreciation, 2 vols. London, 1910). Mond bequeathed, subject to the life-interest of his wife, the greater portion of his pictures to the National Gallery, with a sum to provide for their housing. He also left 20,000l. to the Munich Akademie der bildenden Künste for the training of art students.

Though not above the middle height, Mond was a man of impressive presence, with a massive head, full beard, dark piercing eyes, and strongly marked features of an Oriental type. A marble bust (1896) by Joseph von Kopf; a bronze bust by Henrik Glicenstein; a bronze full figure (1906) by Ferdinand Seeboeck; a monumental bronze bas relief (1909) by C. Fontana, presented to Mond by a committee of Italian chemists; a portrait medallion by E. Lantéri (1911), and an oil painting by Solomon J. Solomon, R.A. (at Sir Alfred Mond's house), belong to Mrs. Mond.

[Obituaries in The Times, 13 Dec. 1909; Nature, lxxxii. 222 (1909), by Sir Edward Thorpe, F.R.S.; Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei Lincei, ser. 5, xix. p. 409 (1910), by Raffaele Nasini; Rendiconti della Società chimica Italiana, ii. (1910), by Luigi Gabba; Journ. Soc. Chem. Industry, xxviii. 1304 (1910); The Recovery of Sulphur from Alkali-waste, by L. Mond, Liverpool, 1868; On the Origin of the Ammonia-Soda Process, by L. M., Journ. Chem. Soc. Ind. iv. 527 (1885); presidential address on the production of ammonia, Journ. Soc. Chem. Industry, viii. 505 (1889); presidential address on Chlorine to the chemical section of the British Association; Brit. Assoc. Report for 1896, p. 734; History of my Process of Nickel Extraction, by L. M., Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind. xiv. 945 (1895); personal knowledge; private information from Mrs. Mond, Mr. R. L. Mond, Sir WiUiam Ramsay, Sir Henry Roscoe, and Sir Edward Thorpe.]

P. J. H.


MONKHOUSE, WILLIAM COSMO (1840–1901), poet and critic, born in London on 18 March 1840, was son of Cyril John Monkhouse, a solicitor, by his wife Amelia Maria Delafosse, of a Huguenot family which came to England after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Monkhouse entered St. Paul's School on 3 Oct. 1848, and left in 1856 to take up a nomination to a supplementary clerkship in the board of trade, then under the presidency of Lord Stanley of Alderley. Rising through various grades, he was assistant secretary to the finance department at his death. In 1870-1 he was sent by the board to South America in connection with Seamen's Hospitals; in 1894-6 he acted as a member of the committee on the Mercantile Marine Fund. Monkhouse' s literary career began betimes. He wrote much verse while at school, and he was an early contributor to 'Temple Bar,' the 'Argosy,' the 'Englishwoman's' and other magazines. It was not until 1865 that Moxon put forth his first volume, 'A Dream of Idleness, and other Poems.' The volume was of promise, and some of its pieces, e.g. 'The Chief Ringer's Burial' and 'The Night Express,' found their place in anthologies. But it had no great success, pecuniary or otherwise. The moment was perhaps unfavourable to one who was a disciple of Wordsworth and Tennyson. After an essay in the three-volume novel, 'A Question of Honour' (1868), Monkhouse for some years practically abandoned poetry for literary and art criticism. He became a frequent contributor to the 'Academy,' to the 'Magazine of Art' (then under the editorship of W. E. Henley), and eventually to the 'Saturday Review.'