Frederick Debartzch Monk, PC QC (April 6, 1856 – May 15, 1914) was a Canadian lawyer and politician.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of The Hon. Mr Justice Samuel Cornwallis Monk (1814-1888) and Rosalie Caroline Debartzch (1819-1889), daughter of The Hon. Pierre-Dominique Debartzch. His grandmother, Anne (Gugy) Monk was a daughter of Col. The Hon. Louis Gugy. He received a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1877 from McGill University and was called to the Quebec Bar in 1878. From 1888 to 1914, he taught in the faculty of law at the Université Laval. In 1893, he was made a Queen's Counsel.
He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in 1896 as a Conservative Member of Parliament for the riding of Jacques Cartier. He was re-elected in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1911. He resigned from Cabinet on October 28, 1912 after disagreeing with Sir Robert Borden over the refusal of a referendum on Canadian purchase of three dreadnought class ships for Laurier´s ´Tin Pot Navy.´ From 1911 to 1912, he was the Minister of Public Works. Monk continued as a backbench MP, though his relations with the Conservative Party were increasingly strained, until March 2, 1914 when he resigned from the House of Commons due to ill health. He died two months later.
His son, Frederick Arthur Monk, was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec from 1935 to 1936.
Famous quotes containing the words frederick and/or monk:
“Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“At the time there was a claustral monk named Frere Jean of the Hashes, who was young, gallant, joyful, good natured, dextrous, bold, adventurous, thoughtful, tall, thin, with a capacious mouth, gifted in the nose, a great dispatcher of hours, quite an accomplisher of masses, a quick doer-in of vigils,—to put it in a nutshell, a true monk if ever there’s been one since this monk of a world first monked out a monk; moreover, a cleric to his very teeth in matters of the breviary.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)