Thomas Moody (colonial officer)

Thomas Moody (the fourth) was born in Arthuret, Longtown, Cumbria, by Barbara Blamire (1740–1806), who was the daughter of John Blamire of Buckhowbank (later Buckabank) Dalston, and who was a cousin of William Blamire MP High Sheriff of Cumberland and of the poet Susanna Blamire. His middle brother George, was a surgeon whose sixth son was the high church clergyman Clement Moody, Vicar of Newcastle. who was the father of the barrister Robert Alexander FRS FSA. The granddaughter of George Moody's other daughter Anne Moody married Thomas Moody's grandson Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody. Thomas Moody (the fourth)'s eldest brother Charles, of Longtown, was a gentleman farmer who inherited the family's trade of foreign food-commodities, through whom his nephew was the West Indies planter Charles Moody Junior (b. c. 1795 - d. 1818) who died at Demerara during January 1818. Relation to Washington family Thomas Moody (the fourth)'s great-great grandparents were Henry Moody, a London merchant who was listed as a member of the landed gentry in 1673, and Hannah Washington, who was the daughter of the merchant Robert Washington (b. 1616, Adwick le Street, Yorkshire, d. 1674, Rotterdam) of Austhorpe Hall, Leeds. Robert Washington (b. 1616)'s ancestor Sir John Washington (d. 1331) was the brother of Sir Robert Washington (d. 1324) who was the progenitor of the branch of the Washington family that resided at Sulgrave Manor, from whom the founder of the United States was descended. ==Character and society==

Education He was privately tutored by Westminster School-educated tutors from Edinburgh University. He was extensively read in history, economics, philosophy, climatology, physics, and surveillance, and was fluent in English, French, and Dutch. and by 20th century historian D. J. Murray as 'an expert on West Indian affairs in general' He had 'all [the London establishment]'s archives open to him' and was 'almost an obvious choice' of 33 Bridge Street, Blackfriars, City of London; and a Director of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, of 5 Copthall Court, City of London. He was a member of Thomas Campbell's Conduit Street Club, and of London's United Service Club and Political Economy Club, at which he disputed the economics of James Mill, of John Ramsay McCulloch, and of Adam Smith, and admired the philosophy of Jean-Baptiste Say. His other friends included Sir Robert Wilmot Horton (with whom he had an extensive correspondence, Sir James Leith (after whom he named another of his sons); Thomas Hyde Villiers; ==West Indies==

Aide-de-camp (1797–1821) Moody arrived in Barbados in 1797, of the Anglican Codrington College, at which he served until 1805. which Moody entered as a Lieutenant on 1 July 1806. land-marine force, whose officers were drawn from the upper middle class and landed gentry of British society, who performed, in addition to military engineering, 'reconnaissance work, led storming parties, demolished obstacles in assaults, carried out rear-guard actions in retreats and other hazardous tasks'. Moody's first duty was to administer the Office of Ordinance in Demerara, who was Governor of Barbados from May 1815 to October 1816, in the Order of Military Merit. but not to use the title 'Sir'. In 1816, Moody was responsible for the transfer of Africans, whom the Royal Navy had rescued from slave-ships since the abolition of the slave-trade, that he described as an attempt 'by the mass of the slaves... to gain independence', and he during September 1816 endorsed a request that the Prince Regent 'recommend in the strongest manner to the local authorities in the respective colonies, to carry into effect every measure which may tend to promote the moral and religious improvement, as well as the comfort and happiness of the negroes'. Moody contended that blacks ought to be treated without partiality to whites. Moody received the rank of Major in the Royal Engineers for his services in conflicts in the West Indies. Moody owned estates in Barbados, in Tortola, and in The Guianas: but he freed his and his wife's slaves without claiming any of the offered compensation except for one enslaved person, who was of British Guiana, There were to be two commissioners who were to report to Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. Moody and John Dougan (1765–1826) volunteered for the commissionerships and were selected by Bathurst. Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, wrote to Moody, 'I do not know any man more competent (if so competent) to direct the application of labour as yourself'. and introduced, as his own invention, new Brown Books in which further statistical information from every colony was entered every six months for the London Colonial Office. Dougan (who was the uncle of Moody's wife Martha Clement (1784–1868) and by the Clapham Sect. Quarterly Review forwarded in 1824 one of Moody's papers to George Canning, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, In April 1824, Moody received the official title of 'Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners'. Thomas Babington Macaulay described Moody's report as 'in substance, a defence of West Indian slavery' but Macaulay's description is inaccurate because Moody did not desire the Africans' employment as slaves, and himself as a 'practical philanthropist'. Moody's reports provoked ire of the evangelical Whig abolitionists, Moody, in correspondences and in the newspapers, repudiated the assertions by his critics. and in 1828. West Indian Service; Director of Gunpowder; Civic Engineer (1828–1849) Moody's office at the Colonial Office was abolished in 1828 whilst he, a high church Anglican, was 'unpopular with the Saints [evangelicals]'. Moody then was employed in London by the Duke of Wellington to advise on the defence of the West Indies, Moody served as Commander of the Royal Engineers in the West Indies from 1829 to 1832. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1830. On 13 October 1832 he was appointed Director of the Royal Gunpowder Manufactory at Waltham Abbey, and of the Royal Small Arms Factory at Waltham Abbey. He was a petitioner for the founding charter of the Colonial Bank of the West Indies in 1836 and a director of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1838. He was appointed as British Inspector of Gunpowder on 2 July 1840. Like his son Richard Clement Moody, Moody received from Britain only rank-promotions, rather than knighthoods, because its Government did not want to increase his social status above that of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose father, although a General, was not even a knight, and who was not made a Baronet until 1838. Moody's expertise contributed to the appointment his son Richard Clement Moody as Lieutenant-Governor of the Falkland Islands in 1841, when Richard Clement Moody was the unprecedentedly young age of 28 years. and 13 Curzon Street, Mayfair, where his son Wilmot Horton Moody was raised. His wife's family owned three houses in Wilton Crescent, Belgravia in addition to 13 Bolton Street, Mayfair. His final seat was the since demolished Berrywood House, near Millbrook, Southampton, Hampshire, where he was frequently visited by his wife's relation Renn Hampden, Bishop of Hereford, and his wife's brother Hampden Clement. He died there on 5 September 1849. On 2 June 1852, The Times of London advertised for a claimant of unclaimed property, of the value of £120, that had belonged to 'Lieutenant-Colonel [sic] Thomas Moody of Waltham Abbey', of which the dividends had not been claimed since 1839. ==Marriage and issue==

On 1 January 1809, Thomas Moody married Martha Clement (1784–1868), who was the daughter of the Barbados plantation owner Richard Clement (1754–1829) by the same's wife Susannah Dougan (d. 1786) who was the sister of Moody's fellow Commissioner John Dougan (1765–1826). and Major of The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). His 1822 Journal of his grand tour through France and Switzerland and Italy is now owned by the Scottish University of St Andrews. • Susannah d. unmarried 1884, St Leonards-on-Sea). She received an inheritance from her maternal grandfather Richard Clement. He was named after his maternal grandfather Richard Clement (1754–1829). Major-General, and first Governor of the Falkland Islands, and founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. Married Mary Susannah Hawks, who was the daughter of Joseph Stanley Hawks JP DL, Sheriff of Newcastle, on 6 July 1852, by whom he had 13 children including Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody CB. He received an inheritance from his maternal grandfather and namesake Richard Clement. She accompanied her father to his posting to Guernsey, where she received a letter that her brother Richard Clement Moody had inserted into a bottle and thrown overboard, off the Bill of Portland on a journey to the Falkland Islands, from his ship the Hebe, from which it had been washed ashore, after 34 days in the water, at Blatchington, near Brighton. • James Leith James Leith Moody was educated at Tonbridge School and at St Mary Hall, Oxford. He served as Chaplain to Royal Navy in China; and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, and Gibraltar, and Malta, and Crimea. – 9 June 1955). • Shute Barrington (b. 21 February 1818, Teignmouth, d. 2 June 1851, Australia). He was named after Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham. at St. Michael's Church, Chester Square. Their son Thomas Barrington Moody (b. 29 March 1848: bapt. 5 May 1848 at St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, London) was an artist and a Commander of the Royal Navy who served on HMS Boxer (1868) from 1871 to 1875, and on HMS Egeria (1873) from 1873 to 1881. Thomas Barrington Moody's journal of his travels in Asia is held by the University of New South Wales, Canberra. by whom he had one daughter, Joan Barrington Moody (b. 26 February 1889, Blackheath, d. 4 May 1956, Nanyuki), who married, on 14 December 1914, Lieutenant-Colonel Allen Holford-Walker MC (1890– 1949) of the 2nd battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who was involved in the first ever tank battle during June 1916, with whom she had three children. Shute Barrington Moody died on 2 June 1851, in Australia, and is buried at the Cemetery of St. Matthew's Church, Kensington Road, Marryatville, Adelaide, South Australia. Colonel of the Royal Engineers, and Commander of the Royal Engineers in China and in Africa, and member of Hudson's Bay Company. He married, at Belfast in 1860, Louise Harriet Thompson, who was a daughter of Samuel Thomson. Their son Captain Hampden Lewis Clement (b. 28 February 1855, Hong Kong), of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, served with the 2nd Battalion in South Africa and in the Orange Free State and Orange River Colony, including at Biddulphsberg and Wittebergen, and in the Cape Colony, during 1900, before his retirement from the military in 1907. • Clementina Barbara • Wilmot Horton d. unmarried during December 1853, Kingston, Ontario). Wilmot Horton Moody was raised at 13 Curzon Street, Mayfair, and served from December 1845 ==Further reading==