Richard Moody

Major-General Richard Clement Moody (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British polymath who served as commander of the elite Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, as which he was the founder and the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. He was also the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, of which he founded their capital Port Stanley, and Commanding Executive Officer of Malta during the Crimean War.

Moody was selected to "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific" by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton: who desired to send 'representatives of the best of British culture' who had 'courtesy, high breeding, and urbane knowledge of the world'. The British Government deemed Moody to be the definitive 'English gentleman and British Officer', and his Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, were selected for their 'superior discipline and intelligence'. Moody's original title was 'Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for British Columbia' before he was redesignated the first lieutenant governor of British Columbia. He founded New Westminster, for which he has been described as 'the real father of New Westminster', and the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park, and named Burnaby Lake after his secretary Robert Burnaby, and Port Coquitlam's 400-foot 'Mary Hill' after his wife, Mary Susannah Hawks. Port Moody, and Moody Park and Moody Square in New Westminster, are named after him. Moody left his personal library behind to become the public library of New Westminster.

Moody Brook and Moody Creek in the Falkland Islands, and Moody Point in Antarctica, are named after him.

Birth and ancestry Arms of Richard Clement Moody (1813–1887), shown over the name of his nephew Commander Thomas Barrington Moody (b. 1848) of the Royal Navy. Richard Clement Moody was born on 13 February 1813 at St. Ann's Garrison, Barbados, into a high church landed gentry family with a history of military service in the Royal Engineers,

He was the third of ten children of Colonel Thomas Moody, CRE WI, ADC, Kt., and Martha Clement (1784–1868), who was the daughter of the Napoleonic Wars veteran and Barbados landowner Richard Clement (1754–1829) after whom he was named, and the aunt of Belgravia cricketers Reynold Clement and Richard Clement. His father's English residences were 23 Bolton Street, Mayfair, and 13 Curzon Street, Mayfair. His eldest paternal uncle, Charles Moody, of Longtown, was a gentleman farmer who inherited the family's trade of foreign food-commodities. His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire of Cumberland, a cousin of William Blamire MP High Sheriff of Cumberland and of the poet Susanna Blamire.

Siblings Richard Clement Moody's siblings included Major Thomas Moody (1809–1839); The Rev. James Leith Moody (1816–1896), Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB (1821–1869), during the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion); and the sugar-manufacture expert Shute Barrington Moody, through whom his nephew was Commander Thomas Barrington Moody (b. 1848) of the Royal Navy.

Education

Richard Clement Moody was educated by private tutors He has been described as a 'cultured theoretician', and as ‘a man sensitive to the beauties of nature and capable of expressing his sentiments in beautifully descriptive prose’, at which he became Head of School during his second year and graduated during his third year. Richard Clement Moody was a polymath who excelled in engineering, architecture, and music.

Overview of military and civic career Richard Clement Moody trained on the Ordnance Survey in 1829, land-marine force, whose officers were drawn from the upper middle-class and landed gentry of British society,

Moody was promoted to Lieutenant 1835, to Second Captain in 1844, to Captain in 1847, to Major in January 1855, to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1856,

Moody worked on the Ordnance Survey in Ireland from 30 May 1832 until he became ill during 1833.

He served as an aide-de-camp to the British Colonial Office, on special service, from August 1849. Moody was Commanding Royal Engineer at Chatham Dockyard between March 1864 and January 1866. and a Member of the Royal Agricultural Society. and later at Fairfield House, Charmouth, Lyme Regis. in addition to his estates He inserted into a bottle, which he threw overboard off the Bill of Portland on his journey to the Falkland Islands, a letter to his sister Sophia Moody: the bottle and its letter was, after 34 days in the water, washed ashore at Blatchington, near Brighton, and delivered to Sophia Moody at Guernsey.

When Moody arrived, on the Hebe, at Port Louis on 16 January 1842, Moody appointed Robinson as a JP in June 1843, but banished him from the Islands in March 1845, with the statement that he set-out 'axe in hand' for some other colony. and the two became friends. Moody's refusal to acquiesce to George Thomas Whitington's attempt to force him to travel in the brig Alarm provoked a feud between their families (the latter of which included John Bull Whitington in The Falkland Islands) that continued during Moody's tenure as Governor of the Falkland Islands and in the Colonial Magazine of November 1844, during which Moody said of John Bull Whitington that it was 'unbecoming my station to take any further notice of this individual'. Moody consequently investigated the suitability of Lord John Russell's recommendation of Port William,

Moody levied a tax on alcohol, and, because there was a lack of currency on the island, issued his own currency of promissory notes. These two practices resolved immediate problems on the Islands: but Moody was criticized in Parliament, by Sir William Molesworth, 8th Baronet, for the latter.

In 1845 Moody introduced tussock grass into Great Britain from The Falkland Islands for which he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Agricultural Society.

Moody left the Falkland Islands, for England, on HM Transport Nautilus, in July 1848.

Britain and Malta (February 1849 – October 1858) Moody in 1848 received the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit of France. accepted their nomination, as a consequence of Moody's military record, and of Moody's success as Governor of the Falkland Islands, and of distinguished geopolitical record of Moody's father, Colonel Thomas Moody, CRE WI, ADC, Kt., at the Colonial Office, with such success that he was granted command of the Royal Engineers across the entirety of China.

Moody's responsibility was to transform the new Colony of British Columbia (1858–66) into the British Empire's 'bulwark in the farthest west' and to 'found a second England on the shores of the Pacific'. Moody designed the roads and the settlements of New Westminster, He designed the first Coat of Arms of British Columbia. Moody designed the first Coat of arms of British Columbia.

Subsequent to the enactment of the Pre-emption Act of 1860, Moody settled the Lower Mainland. The British designated multiple tracts as government reserves. The Pre-emption Act did not specify conditions for the distribution of the land, and, consequently, large areas were bought by speculators. However, Lord Lytton, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 'forgot the practicalities of paying for clearing and developing the site and the town' and the efforts of Moody's Engineers were continually impeded by insufficient funds, which, together with the continuous opposition of Governor Douglas, whom Sir Thomas Frederick Elliot (1808–1880) described as 'like any other fraud', 'made it impossible for [Moody's] design to be fulfilled'.

Moody's 5th, 6th, and 7th children, all daughters, were born at Government House, New Westminster. He also is believed to have fathered at least two illegitimate children with his Native American housekeeper. (b. c. 1844), from Victoria, with whom he toured the Fraser River, and after whom he named Lulu Island to the south of Vancouver.

Feud with Governor Douglas Throughout his tenure in British Columbia, Moody feuded with Sir James Douglas Governor of Vancouver Island, whose jurisdiction overlapped with his own. Moody's offices of chief commissioner and lieutenant governor were of "higher prestige [and] lesser authority" than that of Douglas despite Moody's superior social position in the judgement of the settlers. Lord Lytton had selected Moody to "out manoeuvre the old Hudson's Bay Factor [Governor Douglas]". Sir Thomas Frederick Elliot (1808–1880) described Governor Douglas as "like any other fraud", wrote, on 4 August 1859, "it is not pleasant to serve under a Hudson's Bay Factor", and that the "Governor and Richard can never get on". John Robson, who was the editor of the British Columbian and future Premier of British Columbia, wanted Richard Clement Moody's office to include that of Governor of British Columbia, to make Douglas obsolete. Therefore, Robert Edgar Cail, Don W. Thomson, Laura Ishiguro, and Laura Elaine Scott commended Moody for his contribution, and Scott accused Ormsby of being "adamant in her dislike of Colonel Moody" despite the majority of evidence, and almost all other biographies of Moody, including that by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and that by the Royal Engineers, and that by the British Columbia Historical Association, commend Moody's achievements in British Columbia.

The Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment was disbanded in July 1863. The Moody family (which now consisted of Moody, and his wife, and seven legitimate children) Moody left his personal library behind, in New Westminster, to become the public library of New Westminster. Numerous developments occurred in and around Moody Park, including Century House, which was opened by Princess Margaret on 23 July 1958. In 1984, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of New Westminster, a monument of Richard Clement Moody, at the entrance of the park, was unveiled by Mayor Tom Baker. For Moody's achievements in the Falkland Islands and in British Columbia, British diplomat David Tatham CMG, who served as Governor of the Falkland Islands, described Moody as an "Empire builder". The album contains over 100 photographs of the early settlement of British Columbia, including some of the earliest known photographs of First Nations peoples.

His mother Martha was living at Bycroft Terrace, St. David, Exeter, during 1851, and died at Bournemouth on the 30 March 1868.

Marriage and issue On 6 July 1852, at St Andrew's Church, Newcastle upon Tyne, Moody married Mary Susannah Hawks (22 April 1829 – 12 January 1901) of the Hawks industrialist dynasty, who was the daughter of Joseph Stanley Hawks JP DL, Sheriff of Newcastle, and of Mary Boyd of the armigerous Boyd merchant banking family Mary Susannah Hawks's maternal uncles included Admiral Benedictus Marwood Kelly; industrialist Edward Fenwick Boyd; and The Ven. William Boyd (1809–1893), of University College, Oxford, who was Archdeacon of Craven and Honorary Canon of Ripon from 1860, through whom her first cousin was The Ven. Charles Twining Boyd, Archdeacon of Columbo. and a descendant of Sir Thomas Liddell, 1st Baronet, Sir William Chaytor of Croft, and of Sir Hamon de Clervaulx [sic], The Royal British Columbia Museum has 42 letters written by Mary Susannah Moody from the British Empire, mostly from the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66), to her mother and to her sisters, Juliana Stanley Hawks (d. 1868) and Emily Stanley Hawks (d. 1865), who were in England. Mary Susannah Moody was erudite in English and in French literature and the letters have been of interest to scholars of the ruling class of the British Empire.

Mary Susannah Moody, who after her husband's death lived at The Chantry, Foy, Herefordshire, died at Woodfield, Weston-under-Penyard, on 12 January 1901, when she was aged 72 years. She married Arthur Newall, who was the eldest son of Robert Stirling Newall FRS FRAS, at St James's Church, Piccadilly, on 20 July 1883, by whom she had two sons. Their eldest son Robert Stanley with Lieutenant-Colonel William Hawley between 1919 and 1926, and was Vice President of Salisbury Museum from 1971. Her second son was named Basil (b. 1885). Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody CB, Military Knight of Windsor (b. 23 October 1854, Valletta, Malta Mary Latimer, Royal Red Cross, (d. 1936). Mary Latimer's paternal grandmother was Anne Moody who was the first cousin of Richard Clement Moody. Mary Latimer's uncle was Nichol Latimer, who was the publisher of The North China Herald which was the most influential newspaper in China. The eldest daughter of Richard Stanley Hawks Moody and Mary Latimer was Mary Latimer ('Molly') Moody, who married Major-General James Fitzgerald Martin KStJ. Charles Edmund (b. 1856, and was a flannel manufacturer. He later lived at Springfield, Breinton, Herefordshire. He married Kate Ellershaw, who was the daughter of Frederick Ellershaw, in 1885, by whom he had three daughters, the eldest of whom, Kathleen (b. 1886), married Sir Donald Kingdon, Chief Justice of the Gold Coast. Walter Clement (b. 1858, He played rugby for Northumberland He married Laura Evelyn Rynd (d. 1934), who was the sister of Captain G. C. Rynd, of the Manchester Regiment, in 1888. Susan (b. 1860, Government House, New Westminster, British Columbia, d. 1940). Mary She was a Pershore District Councillor. in 1884, with whom she had two sons and two daughters. Their youngest daughter was Mary de Clervaux, who married Alan Edgar Lester, of Birmingham and Harborne, and who drowned in 1950; and their elder daughter was Margaret Alice, who was a missionary at Zanzibar with the Universities' Mission to South Africa. Their elder son was the Royal Arch freemason Major Richard Charles Lowndes MC (1888–1960), of the Royal Artillery, who was captured and imprisoned by the Turkish after the Siege of Kut in World War I. Captain Henry de Clervaux (b. 8 February 1864, Bournemouth, d. 13 December 1900, killed in action at Battle of Nooitgedacht, Second Boer War), whilst serving with the South Wales Borderers/2nd Battalion 24th Regiment. He was named after his ancestor Sir Hamon de Clervaulx [sic] Henry de Clervaux He was educated at Rugby School after which he joined the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment in 1883. He married, on 15 January 1895, Flora Leighton, who was the daughter of Edmund Thomas Leighton, of London, He was greatly interested in sport and riding. She died unmarried. She is buried and commemorated with her nephew Thomas Lewis Vyvian Moody (d. 1918) and his father Richard Stanley Hawks Moody (d. 1930) at All Saints' Churchyard in Monkland, Herefordshire. Major George Robert Boyd (b. 1868, d. 1936). He during 1918 was found guilty of indecent assault of two drivers of the Army Service Corps, and was cashiered by court-martial on 3 April 1918. He lived at Batchcroft, Richard's Castle, near Ludlow. Royal Engineers, of Wyeville, Bridstow, Ross, and the sister of Lieutenant H. C. Whinfield of the Queen’s Foot. who was the eldest son of Captain Charles Frederick Holford , on 10 August 1935, at All Saints' Parish Church, Richard's Castle, near Ludlow. Ruth and Rachel (Twins b. 20 April 1870, Rachel d. 20 April 1870, Ruth d. 21 April 1870, both at Caynham House, Ludlow, Shropshire).

Paternal Ancestry