Thomas Moody (1779–1849)

Colonel Thomas Moody Kt. (1779 – 1849) was a British geopolitical expert to the Colonial Office; Commander of the Royal Engineers; Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners; Director of the British Royal Gunpowder Manufactory; and Director of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company.

Moody was knighted by France, by Louis XVIII, in the Order of Military Merit, for his service during the Napoleonic Wars, and by the Ottoman Empire in their Order of Glory. Moody and his friend Sir James Stirling offered in 1828 to colonise Australia using their own capital, but were prohibited from doing so by the British Government.

Moody was the father of Major-General Richard Clement Moody (who was the founder of British Columbia and first British Governor of the Falkland Islands); and of Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB (who was the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China during the Taiping Rebellion and Second Opium War).

Family and early life

Thomas Moody Junior was born in Arthuret, Longtown, Cumbria into a High Church merchant family, with a history of military service, who included Jacobites who had fought Britain's Protestant monarchy, and who had in-common ancestry with George Washington the founder of the USA. He was the third son of the foreign food-commodity and gunpowder merchant Thomas Moody (1732 – 1796) by Barbara Blamire (1740 – 1806) who was a cousin of William Blamire MP High Sheriff of Cumberland and of the poet Susanna Blamire. His eldest brother Charles inherited the family's trade of foreign food-commodities and of gunpowder. His other brother George, of Longtown, was a surgeon whose daughter Jane married Lewis Alexander of Hopwood Hall, Halifax, West Yorkshire, who was the father of the barrister Robert Alexander FRS FSA.

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. His primary influence were the works of Montesquieu; William Petty; William Robertson; Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (whom he knew personally);Johannes van den Bosch; and those of the Africans Toussaint Louverture and Henri Christophe, and he was read in abolitionist literature and influenced by the contemporary Jean-Pierre Boyer who was the African President of Haiti.

Society

He was described by Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere, to whom he served as aide-de-camp from 1817 to 1820, as 'a very intelligent person': and by 20th century historian D. J. Murray as 'an expert on West Indian affairs in general' who 'helped to provide an understanding in the olonialOffice of problems the existence of which was barely comprehended, ndraised fundamental questions and explained the wider implications of the Government's course of action': and by Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse as 'an officer of high character and reputation'. He was employed by the Duke of Wellington to advise on defence. He had 'all he London establishments archives open to him' and was 'almost an obvious choice' to be 'Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners'.

He was a Director of the Crown Life Assurance Company, 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 London's 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. He invited the Whig chess champion Alexander McDonnell, whom he thought to have an 'unquestionably clever' 'cool and reasoning manner', to Downing Street to discuss economics. His other friends included Sir Robert Wilmot Horton (with whom he had an extensive correspondence, and after whom he named one of his sons); Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham (after whom he named another of his sons); Sir James Leith (after whom he named another of his sons); Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse; Sir James Stirling (with whom he offered to colonise Australia using their own capital); the botanist James Mangles FRS (whom he advised about the Swan River Colony); Thomas Hyde Villiers; and the geographer James Macqueen (whom he contended to be 'a most unmanageable person').

West Indies

Aide-de-camp (1797 - 1821)

Moody arrived in Barbados in 1797, to be mathematics master, writing master, and Assistant Headmaster, of the Anglican Codrington College, at which he served until 1805. Moody there demonstrated such aptitude for mathematics that Lord Seaforth, who was the British General in Barbados, granted Moody his patronage, and procured for Moody a commission in the Royal Engineers, which Moody entered as a Lieutenant on 1 July 1806. Moody's first duty was to administer the Office of Ordinance in Demerara, after which he was promoted to the Government Secretaryships of Demerara and Berbice, as which he served for three years. Moody was promoted to Second Captain on 1 May 1811; to Captain on 20 December 1814; and to Brevet Major on 23 May 1816. He was put on half-pay by the Army, in 1815, after the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars, after which he worked for one year in Guiana as an attorney for the Bohemian Jew Wolfert Katz, who was its wealthiest planter.

Moody served as aide-de-camp to Sir James Leith, who was Governor of Barbados from May 1815 to October 1816, and as Superintendent of the Crown Plantations in Guadeloupe. Moody named his son James Leith Moody after Leith, of whom he was an admirer. Thomas was involved in the successful Invasion of Guadeloupe (1815), for which he was subsequently knighted, in 1820, by Louis XVIII, in the Order of Military Merit. He was permitted by George IV to wear the Cross of the Order whilst in Britain, but not to use the title 'Sir'. Moody received the rank of Major in the British Army for his services in conflicts in the West Indies. Moody also served as aide-de-camp to both the President of Tortola; and to Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere, who was Governor of Barbados from 1817 to 1820, after whom Moody named one of his sons. Moody was described by Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere in a letter from the same to Sir Robert Wilmot Horton that be dated 15 December 1821, as ' very intelligent person, and having been employed in various situations, these gave him opportunities of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the local details, etc. of those islands and Colonies he West Indies and a great deal of useful information may be collected from him'. 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, to the Crown estates in Guadeloupe, where they were to be employed as apprentices. Moody knew that the rescued Africans made an 'extremely useful' contribution to the British Empire. He consequently was appointed as a Parliamentary Commissioner and then as the 'Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners'.

Moody, who contended that blacks ought to be treated without partiality to whites, witnessed and supported the slave-rebellions of September and October 1816 that he described as an attempt 'by the mass of the slaves... to gain independence'. Moody by 1816 owned estates in Barbados, in The Guianas, in Demerara, in Berbice, and in Tortola: but he freed his and his wife's over 500 slaves without claiming any of the offered compensation except for one enslaved person, who was of British Guiana, whom he had trained to be a comptroller.

Moody's appointment as Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners (1821 - 1828)

In 1821, William Wilberforce proposed to the House of Commons that the Colonial Office create a Commission to investigate reports that the Slave Trade Act 1807 was violated by owners who had untruly redesignated their slaves as 'apprentices'. 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. In April 1824, Moody received the official title of 'Home Secretary for Foreign Parliamentary Commissioners'. Moody believed that this title were inaccurate: he wrote in a letter to Robert Hay, of 14 July 1828, 'my real duties have been more connected with the West India Department, the Colonial Finance Accounts, and the correspondence and details relative to emigration'.

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'. Moody had improved the efficacy of the Colonial Office in London: he had improved the efficacy of the annual Blue Books, which had been introduced in 1821, 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. The subjects of the analyses by Moody for the Colonial Office included: 'The duties and means of increasing the utility of naval officers in the West Indies'; the history of the Crown Estates of Berbice; and the conditions of labour on the sugar-plantations of the West Indies'. Moody also wrote the 1825 ''Considerations in Defence of the Orders in Council for the Melioration of Slavery in Trinidad'': a copy of which is in the library of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Historian D. J. Murray provides a synopsis of Moody's contribution to the Colonial Office: 'He oodyhelped to provide an understanding in the Office of problems the existence of which was barely comprehended, ndhe raised fundamental questions and explained the wider implications of the Government's course of action'. Moody considered his objective to be the identification of factual evidence that would enable Lord Bathurst and Wilmot Horton to make accurate decisions: and Moody was contemptuous of the inclusion of unproven assertions in political discourse: Moody wrote, on 3 July 1826, 'It is of infinitely great importance for Lord Bathurst to have laid before him clear statements of facts rather than mere opinions... It is so much easier to give an opinion than to describe carefully and accurately a tedious series of facts. It is, however, from these facts only that Lord Bathurst can form his own principles practically to guide his judgment'. Moody's contention that only factual evidence could be a valid determiner of practice was taught to his protégé James Stephen.

Dougan (who was the uncle of Moody's wife Martha Clement) was the son of an owner of sugar-plantations on Demerara: and stated, 'all my nearest relations and friends were either Planters or Owners of slaves'. Dougan had worked as a privateer and as a Prize Agent for the Royal Navy on Tortola. Dougan was influenced by the evangelical Whigs such as the Quaker John Barton, and by the Clapham Sect. Moody was influenced by Montesquieu, William Petty, William Robertson, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, Johannes van den Bosch, and by the Africans Toussaint Louverture, Henri Christophe, and Jean-Pierre Boyer who was the President of Haiti. Moody's protégé's Stephen's recommendation, in 1802, of indenture created the basis for both the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and for the Orders in Council.

Moody and Dougan arrived on Tortola in May 1822 despite that Moody objected to the stipulated interview process in which masters and apprentices were to be interviewed together: because Moody thought that that practice were 'calculated to excite complaints of the servant against the master'. The slaveowners interviewed by Moody included Abraham Mendes Belisario, who was the Deputy Provost Marshal of Tortola, who owned 17 slaves. Moody insisted that the unreliable 'Character' reports that were provided by the masters ought not to be included in the Commission's report: and that rather he and Dougan ought to specify their assessment of the masters. The Commissioners recorded that African apprentices were employed by free black Africans. When apprentices employed by Hugh C. Maclean, who was Comptroller of the Customs on Tortola, stole livestock, Maclean had them beaten. Dougan objected to Moody's refusal to criticise Maclean: but did not receive any sympathy from the government of the islands. Dougan replied that Moody was an agent 'not of His Majesty's government, but of the colonial assemblies'; and complained of the 'state of Irritation and Disunion of the Commission'; and asserted that as a consequence of ' herepeated attacks, ndthe State of Irritation of Major Moody's Mind... all hopes of Conciliation ereended'. Moody replied that Dougan ' adfor some time past obviously been affected by a termination of blood to his head' and their 'protracted and unpleasant dispute' was inherited by Dougan's daughter Mary Dougan after the death in penury of Dougan in 1826.

John Dougan resigned from the Commission in June 1822 and returned to England to submit to the House of Commons his report, which is dated 20 December 1823, in which he contends that 'free labour in the West Indies is preferable to compulsory labour'. Sir Robert Wilmot Horton (who had by 1824 written, with Charles Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford, an anti-abolitionist article for John Murray's ''Quarterly Review'' for which John Taylor Coleridge wrote anti-abolitionist articles) forwarded in 1824 one of Moody's papers to George Canning, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Moody, who had returned to London by 9 January 1824, in 1825 presented to the House of Commons the official Commission report, with an exposition of the reasons for his refusal to sign Dougan's report. Moody's first report, which is dated 2 March 1825 and consists of over 200 pages, contends that 'without some species of coercion African labour would be worthless'. 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, but as apprentices. Moody described his anti-slavery theory as a 'Philosophy of Labour', and himself as a 'practical philanthropist'. Moody, who was extensively read in abolitionist literature, contended that it were a 'physical fact' that only blacks could perform in the 'torrid zone'. Moody's conclusion was that the Africans in the West Indies should be taken back to Africa.

Moody submitted his second report, also of over 200 pages, in 1826. This analysed agricultural colonies in the Netherlands, the Bengal peasantry, slavery in India, prostitution in Sierra Leone during the African Institution, slavery in the United States, and the American Colonization Society for African-American settlement in West Africa. Moody also studied the agriculture and the commerce of Egypt, the commerce of Carthage, and the religions of Abyssinia. Moody's contentions were endorsed by the director of the Commission, Lord Bathurst; and by the same's Under-Secretary, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton; and by the British Parliament, which stated Moody's ‘great experience in the control of labour, both slave and free, both African and European, in garrison, and in the field’. Moody's reports provoked ire of the evangelical Whig abolitionists, who desired a 'free black peasantry' rather than equality for Africans. Zachary Macaulay in the ''Anti-Slavery Reporter'' censured Moody's contentions; and Thomas Babington Macaulay in the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1827, and in a series of anonymous letters to the ''Morning Chronicle'' newspaper, censured Moody's contentions and his rhetoric. Moody, in correspondences and in the newspapers, repudiated the assertions by his critics.

Sir Robert Wilmot Horton and Thomas Hyde Villiers MP consequently wrote articles (which were ascribed to the pseudonym 'Vindex', which Moody also used) to ''The Star'' newspaper, in which they refuted the objections to Moody's contentions and to the Government's policy. Moody testified before the Privy Council in 1827 and in 1828. Moody's reports influenced Lord Bathurst; and Moody's protégé James Stephen; and Moody's successor Sir Henry Taylor. Historian D. J. Murray contends that Hyde Villiers and Taylor were only advisors, rather than experts like Moody and Stephen. Dougan died destitute, in September 1826, before he had completed his reply to Moody's second report, which was completed by his daughter Mary Dougan and annotated by Moody. John Dougan and Moody were each made a Justice of the Peace.

Moody's offer to colonise Australia (1828)

When the British Government renounced the former's plan to settle the Swan River Colony: Sir James Stirling and Moody, in August 1828, offered to form an association of private capitalists to using their own money settle Australia in fulfilment of the 'principles' of William Penn's settlement of Pennsylvania. Moody had previously advised Stirling's relation James Mangles about the settlement of the Swan River Colony at minimal cost to the British Government. Their proposal was rejected by the government..

West Indian Service; Director of Gunpowder; Civil Engineer; 1828 - 1840

Moody's office at the Colonial Office was abolished in 1828 whilst he was 'unpopular with the Saints vangelical Whigs. Moody then was employed in London by the Duke of Wellington to advise on the defence of the West Indies, to which he returned in 1828 to perform special service in the Dutch Colonies for Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, which he completed in 1829. Moody served as Commander of the Royal Engineers in the West Indies from 1829 to 1832. He on 13 October 1832 was appointed Director of the Royal Gunpowder Manufactory at Waltham Abbey, and of another manufactory of arms at Waltham Abbey.

He was invested as a Knight of the Order of Glory (Ottoman Empire); and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1830; and received a DCL degree from the University of Oxford on 13 June 1834; and was appointed as British Inspector of Gunpowder on 2 July 1840; and was posted to Guernsey in 1846; and had been promoted to Colonel by 1847. 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.

The British Government consulted Moody for important engineering projects: including the Caledonian Railway, and the West Cumberland Railway, and the Furness Railway, and the embankments at Morecambe Bay and Duddon Sands. 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.

Moody's residences were: 7 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, Bloomsbury; and 23 Bolton Street, Mayfair; 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. Moody died on 5 September 1849 at Berrywood House, Hampshire. 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 icThomas 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 Richard Clement (1754 - 1829) and the niece of John Dougan (1765 - 1826). Richard Clement (after whom Thomas named his second son Richard Clement Moody) was the owner of the estates Black Bess (196 slaves) and Clement Castle (220 slaves) on St Peter's Island that were inherited by his son Hampden Clement. Thomas Moody and Martha Clement had 10 children, 8 of whom outlived their father:
# Thomas (b. 10 December 1809, Barbados, d. unmarried on 21 March 1839, Saint Vincent (Antilles)). Captain of the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot 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 (b. 29 August 1811, Barbados, d. unmarried 1884, St Leonards-on-Sea).
# Richard Clement Moody (b. 18 February 1813, Barbados, d. 1887, Bournemouth). 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 the merchant banker Joseph Hawks, on 6 July 1852, by whom he had 13 children including the historian Colonel Richard S. Hawks Moody.
# Sophia (b. 1 July 1814, Georgetown, Guyana, d. 1888, Royal Albert Hall Mansions, South Kensington, London).
# James Leith (b. 25 June 1816, Barbados, d. 1896). Named after Sir James Leith, to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars, and of whom his father was an admirer. 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. He married Mary Willan, who was the daughter of The Rev. Willan, on 15 October 1863, by whom he had 5 children.
# Shute Barrington (b. 21 February 1818, Teignmouth, d. unknown). He was named after Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, and was educated at Eton College, and studied engineering in Manchester and sugar-refinement in London, before he in 1843 investigated sugar-manufacture in Demerara, and Barbados, and St. Kitts, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Croix, and Louisiana, and Cuba, for which he reported to Parliament in 1847 and in 1848. Shute married Sarah Blackburn, on 19 January 1847, at St. Michael's Church, Chester Square and 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 married Mary Ellen Dewrance by whom he had one daughter, Joan Barrington Moody, who married, on 14 December 1914, Allen Holford-Walker (1890 - 1949) of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
# Stapleton Cotton (b. March 1819, d. April 1820, Barbados).
# Hampden Clement Blamire (b. 10 January 1821, Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, d. 1869, Belfast). 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, Louise Harriet Thompson: by whom he had two daughters and one son Hampden Lewis Clement (b. 28 February 1855, Hong Kong), who was a Captain of the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot.
# Clementina Barbara (b. 1822 – d. 1864).
# Wilmot Horton (b. 6 June 1824, 23 Bolton Street, Mayfair, d. unmarried during December 1853, Kingston, Ontario). Wilmot Horton Moody was raised at 13 Curzon Street, Mayfair, and served from 1845 as a Lieutenant of the Royal Artillery.

Further reading

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Thomas

People from Cumberland
Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
Royal Engineers officers
English civil engineers
English slave owners
18th-century English businesspeople
19th-century English businesspeople
British colonial governors and administrators in the Americas
Recipients of the Order of Military Merit (France)
1779 births
1849 deaths
Military personnel from Cumbria
18th-century British Army personnel
19th-century British Army personnel