John Moore (26 April 1730 – 18 January 1805) was
Archbishop of Canterbury in the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
.
Life
Moore was the son of Thomas Moore, a butcher, and his wife Elizabeth. He was born in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
and was baptised at
St. Michael's Church, Gloucester. He was educated at
The Crypt School, Gloucester
The Crypt School is a grammar school with academy status for boys and girls located in the city of Gloucester. Founded in the 16th century, it was originally an all-boys school, but it made its sixth form co-educational in the 1980s, and moved ...
. He was a student at
Pembroke College, Oxford (matriculated 1745; BA 1748; MA 1751).
After ordination, he was for some years tutor to
Lord Charles Spencer
Lord Charles Spencer PC (31 March 1740 – 16 June 1820) was a British courtier and politician from the Spencer family who sat in the House of Commons between 1761 and 1801.
Background
Spencer was the second son of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of ...
and
Lord Robert Spencer
Lord Robert Spencer (8 May 1747 – 23 June 1831) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons several times between 1768 and 1818.
Early life
Spencer was born on 8 May 1747. He was the son of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, ...
, the younger sons of
Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough
Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, (22 November 170620 October 1758), styled as The Honourable Charles Spencer between 1706 and 1729 and as The Earl of Sunderland between 1729 and 1733, was a British soldier, nobleman, and politician fr ...
. On 21 September 1761, he was preferred to the fifth prebendal stall in the church of
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
and, in April 1763, to a canonry at
Christ Church, Oxford.
On 1 July 1764, he received the degrees of B.D. and D.D. On 19 September 1771, he was made
Dean of Canterbury
The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England. The current office of Dean originated after the English Reformation, although Deans had also existed before this time; its immediate precur ...
, and on 10 February 1775,
Bishop of Bangor
The Bishop of Bangor is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Bangor. The see is based in the city of Bangor where the bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Cathedral Church of Saint Deiniol.
The ''Report of the Commissioners appointed ...
.
On the death of Archbishop
Frederick Cornwallis
Frederick Cornwallis (5 March 1713 – 19 March 1783) served as Archbishop of Canterbury, after an illustrious career in the Anglican Church. He was born the seventh son of an aristocratic family.
His twin brother Edward Cornwallis had a mili ...
, he was translated to the
See of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Just ...
on 26 April 1783, on the joint recommendation of bishops
Robert Lowth
Robert Lowth ( ; 27 November 1710 – 3 November 1787) was a Bishop of the Church of England, Oxford Professor of Poetry and the author of one of the most influential
textbooks of English grammar.
Life
Lowth was born in Hampshire, England, G ...
and
Richard Hurd, both of whom had declined the primacy.
Though not a great ecclesiastic, Moore was an amiable and worthy prelate, a competent administrator, and a promoter of the Sunday-school movement and of missionary enterprise. He appears to have dispensed his patronage with somewhat more than due regard to the interests of his own family.
He died at
Lambeth Palace on 18 January 1805 and was buried in
Lambeth parish church
Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the oppos ...
.
Family
Moore was married twice, first to Jane Wright (1736 – about 1765
), the sister of
Sir James Wright, Resident at Venice
on 29 April 1763 at Walcot St. Swithin, Somerset, England; and secondly, on 23 January 1770, to Catherine Eden, daughter of Sir Robert Eden of West Auckland. He left children; one son, Roger Moore, would go on to be a Canon of Canterbury Cathedral.
More than 30 years after his first wife's death the Archbishop would officiate at the wedding of her nephew, the later
Sir George Wright, 2nd Baronet, to Rebecca Maclane, on 3 June 1796.
[George Ernest James Wright and Rebecca Maclane were married on 3 June 1796 at St. Mary, Lambeth, Surrey, England. ''George Ernest James Wright Esquire of Ray House in the Parish of Woodford in the County of Essex a Batchelor and Rebecca Maclane of the Parish of Ham in the county of Surrey were Married in the Chapel belonging to Lambeth House by special Licence ; this third Day of June in the Year One Thousand seven Hundred and ninety six By me J. Cantuar. This Marriage was solemnized between Us George Ernest James Wright Rebecca Maclane In the Presence of Wentworth John Bradney'' ("Cantuar" is part of the Archbishop of Canterbury's formal signature).]
Discovery of his coffin
In 2017, during the refurbishment of the
Garden Museum
The Garden Museum (formerly known as the Museum of Garden History) in London is Britain's only museum of the art, history and design of gardens. The museum re-opened in 2017 after an 18-month redevelopment project.
The building is largely th ...
, which is housed at the medieval church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, 30 lead coffins were found; one with an archbishop's red and gold mitre on top of it. A metal plate identified one of these as belonging to Moore, with another being that of his wife Catherine.
The Sunday Telegraph
''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings.
It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...
'Lost in Lambeth: the tombs that time forgot' p17 Issue no 2,913 dated Sunday 16 April 2017
References
Attribution
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, John
1730 births
1805 deaths
18th-century Anglican archbishops
19th-century Anglican archbishops
Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford
Archbishops of Canterbury
Bishops of Bangor
Burials at St Mary-at-Lambeth
Deans of Canterbury
People educated at The Crypt School, Gloucester
18th-century Welsh Anglican bishops