Richard Stanley Hawks Moody

Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody (23 October 1854 – 10 March 1930) was a distinguished British Army officer, military 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 industrialist dynasty.

Birth and family Moody was born in Strada Reale, Valletta, Malta, on 23 October 1854, into a high church landed gentry family of senior officers in the Royal Engineers. He was born whilst his father was Commanding Executive Officer of the Royal Engineers in Malta. (who was the founder of British Columbia)

Moody's paternal grandparents were the Colonial Office aide-de-camp Colonel Thomas Moody, ADC, CRE WI, Kt., and Martha Clement (1784 – 1868). Moody's uncles included The Rev. James Leith Moody (1816 -1896) (who was Chaplain to Royal Navy in China, and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, and Gibraltar, and Malta, and Crimea); 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.

Moody was a second cousin of the high church clergyman, theologian, classical scholar, and freemason, Clement Moody, Vicar of Newcastle. Moody's nephew was freemason Major Richard Charles Lowndes MC.

Early life Moody spent his infancy in British Columbia, of which his father was founder and first Lieutenant-Governor, and is mentioned in the letters that were written from there by his mother, Mary Susannah Hawks, to her sisters Juliana Stanley Hawks and Emily Stanley Hawks in England.

He was educated in England at Ludlow Grammar School and at Cheltenham College. Moody subsequently was commissioned, as a sub-lieutenant, in the 3rd Regiment of Foot, on 9 August 1873. for which he received the medal with clasp.

Malta Moody was brigade major at Malta between 1885 and 1890. in addition to estates which included over 3049 acres in British Columbia. Colonel R. S. H. Moody (1854–1930) at Windsor Castle circa 1920

India Between 1895 and 1897, Moody served in the Chitral Expedition, in which he was part of General William Forbes Gatacre's flying column, including at Bajaur and Mohmand.

Second Boer War Moody lived at 2 Sydenham Grove, Sydenham Road, Cheltenham, in 1899.

Between 1899 and 1902, Moody served in the Second Boer War, for which he was mentioned in dispatches at least twice. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 24 February 1900 to command a battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. He went to South Africa to command the 2nd battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, from January 1901 to end of campaign, for which 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. 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 the King's medals with 5 clasps.

Moody was back in South Africa, in command of the 2nd battalion, from which he and about 640 officers and men left for Bombay, India, on the SS Soudan in January 1903, to be stationed in Rawalpindi, where his youngest daughter Barbara Bindon to 1918, after which he retired again. Caricature of Colonel R. S. H. Moody (1854 -1930) circa 1920

Military Knight of Windsor and Military Historian Moody lost his brother, Henry de Clervaux Moody, in the Second Boer War in 1900, and his only son, Thomas Lewis Vyvian Moody, in the World War I in 1918. He was a member of the Naval and Military Club,

Moody, at the request of The Buffs, He during 1922 gave the first copy of the book to the Royal Library, Windsor.

Moody died on 11 March 1930 at Windsor Castle. His funeral at Windsor involved a guard-of-honour by the 1st battalion of The Scots Guards. His ashes are 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.

Marriage

Moody in 1881 married, at Muston, Filey, Mary Latimer, who was the second of five children of the solicitor John Latimer (b. 1827, Kirklinton Hall, d. aged 54 years), of Horsfall and Latimer Solicitors Park Row, Leeds, and of St. Mark's Villas, Leeds, and Hannah Maria Lawson (who was the daughter of James Lawson of Bramhope Manor). Mary Latimer's paternal grandmother was Anne Moody who was the niece of Moody's grandfather Colonel Thomas Moody, CRE WI, ADC, Kt.. Mary Latimer's uncle was Nichol Latimer, who was the publisher of The North China Herald which was the most influential newspaper in China.

Mary Latimer's brother Hugh Graham Latimer (b. 1863) was articled to his father as a solicitor, served as a Lieutenant in 3rd battalion West Yorkshire Regiment, and inherited his father's farming, before emigrating to Almyra, Arkansas, by 1904. on 5 June 1906, at Exeter Cathedral, and had one daughter, Mary Charlotte (b. 20 September 1909, The Court, Cullompton, Devon), who married, on 20 September 1929, at Holy Trinity Brompton, Gerald Dawson Kitchingman, Royal Engineers, by whom she had one son, Richard Martin Kitchingman (b. 1 March 1933). 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. Thomas Lewis Vyvian d. 21 March 1918, killed in action, Lagnicourt, at Eastbourne College, Thomas is commemorated at the Arras Memorial, France, and at The Royal Memorial Chapel, Chapel Square, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. (b. 14 June 1903, India, d. 1974). Barbara's middle name was that of her father's general Sir Bindon Blood. on 20 December 1930 at Parish Church, Windsor, and had one daughter, Bridget who married the choral educator Peter Stanley Lyons at Wells Cathedral in 1957.

Published works

Ancestry