Henry Wentworth Monk was born on April 6, 1827, in March Township near Ottawa, Ontario.

He was a farmer, social reformer, Christian Zionist, author, and journalist. At the age of seven, he was sent to Christ's Hospital School in England, a deeply religious institution, where he would remain until 1842. Upon his return to Canada, Monk spent five years farming and studying the Bible, deeply concerned with the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, which would become an issue of life-long interest. In 1853, he committed himself to the ministry of Christ and travelled to Israel. It was here that Monk first met William Holman Hunt, who shared many of Monk's religious views, and who would paint a portrait of his friend in 1858. He returned to Canada in 1855 following the death of his father and spent two years writing "A Simple Interpretation of the Revelation", which he later published in England under the financial backing of art critic John Ruskin. Monk's behaviour became increasingly erratic in his later life, having suffered head injuries in an 1864 shipwreck, and he was briefly committed to Kingston's Rockwood Asylum in 1868. He continued to publish religious articles in both England and Ottawa, before devoting himself to the issue of world peace in 1884, seeking positions in the Canadian Parliament and Senate in order to carry out his vision. Hunt's portrait of Monk was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in 1911.

He died on August 24, 1896, in Ottawa, Ontario.