Harrietsham – 22 June 2006. It is with much sadness that the Chancery of the Delegation announces the death of longstanding delegation member, Major-General The Right Honourable Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, a Bailiff Knight Grand Cross of Justice of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St George and Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I. Viscount Monckton was born in 1915 and was first invested in the Order in 1975.
Viscount Monckton graduated from Harrow and Trinity College in Cambridge in 1939 and was commissioned into the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards with which he joined the British Expeditionary Force in France. In 1940 Viscount Monckton was awar ded the Military Cross. Later he was a Brigade Major of an armoured brigade in England and joined the 3rd King’s Own Hussars in 1944 in Palestine. He went with it to Italy and serve there until the end of the Italian Campaign when he returned to his own regiment in Germany.
Viscount Monckton commanded A Squadron of the “Skins” in Korea between 1951-1952 and was promoted lieutenant–colonel to join the military operations branch in the War Office in 1953. During his subsequent 2 years in Whitehall he was a member of the British delegation to the Geneva Conference on French Indo-China and Korea and was appointed by HM The Queen as an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services in 1956. He was then appointed to command the 12th Royal Lancers with the British Army of the Rhine and was later promoted to Commander of the Royal Armoured Corps units in the 3rd Division and elsewhere in the UK. Viscount Monckton who was appointed by HM The Queen as a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1966 before leaving the British Army in 1967 two years after assuming the viscountcy. He was appointed High Sheriff of Kent in 1981.
Viscount Monckton had been a very supportive member of the British and Irish delegation of the Constantinian Order and its charitable activities and in recognition of this and in addition to holding one of the highest ranks within the Constantinian Order was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Francis I in 2006.
Viscount Monckton was also a Knight of the Venerable Order of St John and Chairman of the Council of the Order of St John for Kent between 1969–1975. Viscount Monckton converted to the Roman Catholic faith and later became President of the British Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta from 1974 to 1983. V He was invested as a Bailiff Grand Cross of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the rank of Grand Cross of Obedience. He was responsible for the formation of the Order of Malta Volunteers (OMV) that encouraged young Catholics to work together, by accompanying pilgrimages to Lourdes and helping the destitute.
He was Colonel of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers between 1967-1973, Honorary Colonel of the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry Squadron, 1974-1979, President of the Anglo-Belgian Union 1973-1983, ( he was decorated by HM The King of the Belgians as a Commander of the Order of the Crown and a Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold II), the Medway Production Association, 1968-1972, the Kent Archaeological Society, 1968-1975 and the Kent Association of Boy’s Clubs, 1965-1978.
Requiescat in pace.