Richard Stanley Hawks Moody Explained

Honorific Prefix:Colonel
Richard Stanley Hawks Moody
Birth Date:23 October 1854
Death Date:10 March 1930
Birth Place:Strada Reale, Valletta, Malta
Alma Mater:Ludlow College
Cheltenham College; Staff College, Camberley
Allegiance:United Kingdom
Branch:British Army
Rank:Colonel

Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody, (23 October 1854 – 10 March 1930) was a distinguished British Army officer, and historian, and Military Knight of Windsor. He was the eldest son of Major-General Richard Clement Moody, Kt. (who was the founder of British Columbia) and of Mary Susannah Hawks of the Hawks dynasty.

Birth and family

Moody was born in Strada Reale, Valletta, Malta, on 23 October 1854, into a traditional merchant family with a history of military service,[1] whilst his father was Malta's Commanding Executive Officer of Royal Engineers. Moody was the eldest son of Major-General Richard Clement Moody, Kt.[2] [3] (who was the founder and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia) and of Mary Susannah Hawks. Mary Susannah Hawks was the daughter of the merchant banker Joseph Hawks JP DL, and of Mary Boyd of the Boyd merchant banking family.[4] [5] Moody's paternal grandfather was the geopolitician Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt.[6] [7] [8]

Moody's uncles included James Leith Moody (1816 -1896)[9] [10] [11] (who was Chaplain to Royal Navy in China, and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, and Gibraltar, and Malta, and Crimea);[12] and Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB (1821 - 1869)[11] [10] (who was Commander of the Royal Engineers in China[13] [14] during the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion); and the Etonian[15] [16] engineer Shute Barrington Moody (b. 1818).[17] [18] [19]

Early life

Moody spent his infancy in British Columbia, of which his father was founder and Lieutenant-Governor,[20] [21] [22] and is regularly mentioned in the letters written by his mother, Mary Hawks, to England.[23] [24] Moody and his brothers were educated in England at Ludlow Grammar School[25] and at Cheltenham College.[26] [27] Moody subsequently was commissioned, as a sub-lieutenant, in the 3rd Regiment of Foot, on 9 August 1873.[26] [28] He subsequently passed the Staff College, Camberley.[26] [28]

Military service

Anglo-Zulu War

Moody served in the Anglo-Zulu War, in 1879, as an adjutant, in Zululand, with the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Foot.[26] [29]

Malta

Moody was brigade major at Malta, 1885–90.[26]

India

Between 1895 and 1897, Moody served in the Chitral Expedition, in which he was part of General William Forbes Gatacre's flying column.[26]

Moody was part of the Malakand Field Force in 1897, during which he was second in command of 3rd Regiment of Foot under General Sir Bindon Blood, after whom he named his youngest daughter, Barbara Bindon. During this conflict, Moody was mentioned in dispatches,[26] and fought alongside Winston Churchill, who mentions him in Chapter XII (At Inayat Kila) of his history of the conflict, The Story of the Malakand Field Force.[30]

Second Boer War

Between 1899 and 1902, Moody served in the Second Boer War, for which he was mentioned in dispatches at least twice.[26] [31] He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 24 February 1900 to command a battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, which was not raised, so he was sent to South Africa on special service, and commanded the 2nd battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, from January 1901 to end of campaign. In this position he was again mentioned in despatches. Following the end of the war in June 1902, he returned to England on the SS Custodian which landed at Southampton in August 1902.[32] He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the South Africa honours list, which was published on 26 June 1902, and he received both the Queen's and King's medals with 5 clasps.[26] He received the decoration of CB from King Edward VII during an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902.[33]

World War I

Moody initially retired from the Army in 1906, subsequent to which he was appointed Commander of the Devon and Somerset Brigade of the Territorial Army until 1910.[34] Moody subsequent to the outbreak of World War I in 1914 rejoined active service and raised[34] the 7th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers,[26] of which he served as Colonel, in addition to as Colonel of 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers[26] and, in 1915, as Commandant of a School of Instruction for Officers at Dover.[26] In 1916, he raised, from the Devonshire Regiment, and took to France,[34] a battalion of the Labour Corps, which he commanded from 1917 to 1918, after which he retired again from service.

Military Knight of Windsor and Historian

Moody lost his brother, Henry de Clervaulx Moody, in the Second Boer War,[35] and his only son, Thomas Lewis Vyvian Moody, in the First World War. Moody was appointed an honorary Colonel of the Buffs (East Kent Regiment) and a Military Knight of Windsor in 1919.[34] [26] He was a member of the Naval and Military Club.[36] Moody, at the request of The Buffs,[34] wrote The Historical Records of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 3rd Regiment of Foot, 1914–1919, which was published in 1923.[37] [38] He in 1922 gave the first copy of the book to the Royal Library, Windsor.[39] Moody died on 11 March 1930 at Windsor Castle. He is buried at All Saints' Churchyard in Monkland, Herefordshire, where at Plot 62 there is a memorial to him, and to his sister, Gertrude, and to his son, Thomas Lewis Vyvian Moody.[40]

Marriage

Moody in 1887 married Mary Latimer[26] (d. 1936), who was the daughter of John Latimer Esq. of Leeds,[34] [41] and they had four children:[26]

  1. Mary Latimer (b. 1883, d. 1960). Married Major-General James Fitzgerald Martin at Exeter Cathedral, in 1906,[42] and had one daughter, Mary Charlotte (b.1909).
  2. Marjorie Brogden (b. 1886, d. 1962, Dennington, Suffolk). Married Arthur Graham Brown, in 1914, and had two sons, George Arthur and Thomas Lionel Vyvian. Thomas Lionel Vyvian was educated at Cheltenham College and at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, before he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers, with whom he went to Egypt with the 1st Armoured Division. He received the George Medal for service on the Agedabia El Aghelia Road on 17 January 1942.[43]
  3. Thomas Lewis Vyvian (b. 4 November 1896, Peshawar, Bengal,[44] d. 21 March 1918, killed in action, Lagnicourt,[44] France). He was educated at Cheltenham College,[45] at Eastbourne College,[45] [44] and at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Subsequent to leaving Eastbourne College, Moody served on HMS Worcester, with the Royal Indian Marine Service, until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, whereupon he entered the Australian Army at Melbourne. He served with the 8th battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment during the Gallipoli Campaign.[45] Subsequent to his wounding during the Gallipoli Campaign, Thomas Moody entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from which he was commissioned, as Lieutenant, in the 1st battalion of Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment),[44] with which he served on the Western Front from July 1916.[45] Thomas was fatally shot, whilst he was in command of platoons that were surrounded by German troops on the Western Front near Lagnicourt,[44] by a German officer with a revolver.[46] Thomas is commemorated at the Arras Memorial, France,[47] and at The Royal Memorial Chapel, Chapel Square, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[44] He died unmarried and without issue.
  4. Barbara Bindon[48] (b. 1903, India, d. 1973). Barbara married the choral conductor James W. Webb-Jones on 20 December 1930,[49] at Parish Church, Windsor, and had one daughter, Bridget (b. 5 September 1937) who married the musician Peter S. Lyons at Wells Cathedral in 1957.[50] [51]

Published works

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Rupprecht. Anita. September 2012. 'When he gets among his countrymen, they tell him that he is free': Slave Trade Abolition, Indentured Africans and a Royal Commission. Slavery & Abolition. 33 . 3 . 435–455. 10.1080/0144039X.2012.668300. 144301729.
  2. Book: The New Annual Army List for 1848, p.683. Au Bureau Du Spectateur Militaire, 1848.
  3. Web site: Statue of R. C. Moody in Sash and Star of Knight Grand Cross of Institution du Mérite Militaire (1848). 25 April 2022 . Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Col. R. C. Moody.
  4. Web site: Letters of Mary Moody, Royal British Columbia Museum Archives. 4 July 2016.
  5. Book: Fordyce, T. . Local Records : or, Historical Register of Remarkable Events, which have occurred in Northumberland and Durham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Earliest Period of Authentic Record to the Present Time [...]. 172 . T. Fordyce, Newcastle upon Tyne. 1866.
  6. Web site: The Royal Engineers: Colonel Richard Clement Moody. 3 November 2016. 8 August 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160808000743/http://www.royalengineers.ca/moody.html. dead.
  7. Dorothy Blakey Smith, ed., ‘The Journal of Arthur Thomas Bushby, 1858–1859,’ British Columbia
  8. Web site: The Sapper Vol. 5 No. 1 June 1958. 4 July 2016. 26 January 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210126044739/http://royalengineers.ca/SapperJune1958.html. dead.
  9. Web site: Moody, James Leith . Dictionary of Falklands Biography. David . Tatham .
  10. Web site: Moody, Richard Clement, in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885 – 1900, Vol. 38. Hamilton Vetch, Robert. Robert Hamilton Vetch.
  11. Web site: Legacies of British Slave-Ownership: Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Moody: Profile and Legacies Summary. University College London. 6 June 2016.
  12. Book: Hughes-Hughes, W. O. . Entry for Moody, James Leith, in The Register of Tonbridge School from 1820 to 1893. 30 . Richard Bentley and Son, London. 1893.
  13. Book: War Office of Great Britain . Return to an Address of the Honourable The House of Commons, dated 25 June, 1863 : for, "Copy of the Correspondence Between the Military Authorities at Shanghai and the War Office Respecting the Insalubrity of Shanghai as a Station for European Troops:" "And, Numerical Return of Sickness and Mortality of the Troops of All Arms at Shanghai, from the Year 1860 to the Latest Date, showing the Per-centage upon the Total Strength". 107. 1863.
  14. Book: Meehan, John D.. Chasing the Dragon in Shanghai: Canada's Early Relations with China, 1858-1952. 17.
  15. Book: The Eton College School Lists from 1791 to 1877, with Notes and Index. Stapleton, H.E.C.. Year 1829. Simpkin, Marshall, and Company, London. 1884. 146.
  16. Web site: Correspondence with Major Moody, of Barrington, Shute (1734 - 1826), Bishop of Durham.
  17. Book: Parliamentary Papers. 1848. H.M. Stationery Office. 128.
  18. Book: Newton, W. . Newton's London Journal of Arts and Sciences . 293 . 1844.
  19. Book: Scoffern, John . The Manufacture of Sugar in the Colonies and at Home: Chemically Considered . John Scoffern . A2. 1849.
  20. Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Volume 90, Issue 1887, 1887, pp. 453–455, OBITUARY. MAJOR-GENERAL RICHARD CLEMENT MOODY, R.E., 1813–1887.
  21. Book: Edward, Mallandaine. The British Columbia Directory, containing a General Directory of Business Men and Householders…. 1887. E. Mallandaine and R. T. Williams, Broad Street, Victoria, British Columbia. 215 in New Westminster District Directory.
  22. Web site: The Royal Engineers: Richard Clement Moody. 4 December 2016. 8 August 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160808000743/http://www.royalengineers.ca/moody.html. dead.
  23. Web site: Letters of Mary Moody, Royal British Columbia Museum Archives. 4 July 2016.
  24. Web site: Imperial Relations: Histories of family in the British Empire, Esme Cleall, Laura Ishiguro, and Emily J. Manktelow. Project Muse. 4 July 2016.
  25. Web site: Boer War Memorial, Ludlow College.
  26. Web site: Entry for MOODY, Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks, in Who Was Who (A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016).
  27. Book: Hunter, Andrew Alexander . Cheltenham College Register, 1841–1889. 271 . George Bell and Sons, London. 1890.
  28. News: Obituary of Colonel R. S. H. Moody, The Times, 14 March 1930.
  29. Web site: Officers and Commanders. Historic Canterbury. 6 June 2016.
  30. Book: Churchill, Winston L. Spencer. Winston Churchill. The Story of the Malakand Field Force: an episode of frontier war, CHAPTER XII: AT INAYAT KILA. London, UK. Longmans, Green. 1898.
  31. Web site: Mentions in despatches – Army. Anglo-Boer War.
  32. The Army in South Africa – troops returning home. 22 July 1902 . 11 . 36826.
  33. Court Circular . 25 October 1902 . 8 . 36908.
  34. Web site: Obituary of Colonel Richard S. H. Moody, Windsor Paper, July 1930, 'Newspaper cuttings concerning St. George's Chapel and Military Knights of Windsor', Reference No.:SGC M.1042, College of St. George, Windsor Castle. Dean and Canons of Windsor. 1930.
  35. Web site: Colonel Moody's family. Royal Engineers. 6 June 2016. 6 June 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160606135354/http://www.royalengineers.ca/MoodyFamily.html. dead.
  36. Book: Hunter, Andrew Alexander . Cheltenham College Register, 1841–1889. 271 . George Bell and Sons, London. 1890.
  37. Web site: Bibliography for Introduction to Military History (Part1). University of Kent. 6 May 2016.
  38. Web site: The Historical Records of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 3rd Regiment of Foot, 1914–1919, Naval and Military Press.
  39. Web site: Royal Collection Trust: R. S. H. Moody, Historical Records of The Buffs, East Kent Regiment (3rd Foot) […] ].
  40. Plot 62, All Saints' Churchyard, Monkland, Herefordshire, HR6 9DB
  41. Marriage Announcement, The Times, 8 November 1881
  42. Web site: Entry for MARTIN, Major-General James Fitzgerald, in Who Was Who (A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publishing, London).
  43. Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, Somerset, England, 6 March 1943: Military Register
  44. Web site: War Memorials Online, Memorial to Thomas Lewis Vyvyan Moody WMO/265833.
  45. Book: The Court Journal, 5 July 1918.
  46. Web site: Eastbourne College Roll of War Service, 1914 – 1918, p. 40 – 41, Cambridge University Press, 1921.
  47. Web site: Arras Memorial, Every Man Remembered, Profile for Thomas Lewis Vyvian Moody.
  48. Engagement Announcement of James William Webb-Jones and Barbara Bindon Moody. Engagements . 3 July 1930 .
  49. Book: WEBB-JONES, James William (1904–1965). Who's Who, Oxford Index. Oxford University Press.
  50. Entry for Lyons, Peter S., Register of Twentieth Century Johnians, Volume I, 1900–1949. St John's College, Cambridge.
  51. 'Obituary of Peter S. Lyons, Rutland and Stamford Mercury, Friday, 20 April 2007.

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