Born on March 18, 1840, William Cosmo Monkhouse was educated at St. Paul's School from 1848 to 1856. He earned his living at the Board of Trade, in which he worked his way up from clerk to Assistant Secretary of the Finance Department. Privately, Monkhouse was a man of letters: a poet and a critic of art and literature. He published five volumes of verse between 1865 and 1901. His first wife was Laura Keymer, and his second, with whom he had eight children, was Leonora Eliza Blount. He died on July 2, 1901.

• D., A. [biography] The Dictionary of National Biography. Supplement: January 1901-December 1911. Ed. Sir Sidney Lee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920. II: 634-35.
• Monkhouse, William Cosmo. Corn and Poppies. London: E. Mathews, 1890. H&SS A-4129 Robarts Library
• --. The Christ upon the Hill: A Ballad. Etched by W. Stanc. London: Smith Elder & Co., 1895. LR 404 K3 British Library (presentation copy of 200)
• --. A Dream of Idleness, and Other Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1865. 11651.aa.19 British Library
• --. Life of Leigh Hunt. London: W. Scott, 1893. PR 4813 M6 Robarts Library
• --. Nonsense Rhymes. London: R. Brimley Johnson, n.d. Illustrated by Gilbert Chesterton. 12315.ccc.50 British Library end C458 Z5M65 1902 Fisher Rare Book Library
• --. Pasiteles the Elder & Other Poems. London: R. Brimley Johnson, 1901. 011651.i.74 British Library
• --. Turner. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1882. ND 497 .T8M745 Royal Ontario Museum