Hampden Clement Blamire Moody

Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody, CB (1821–27 February 1869) was the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China at the height of the British Empire and throughout the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion.

Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB
Born	1821 Bedford Square, London
Died	27 February 1869 Belfast, Ireland
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Engineers
Rank	Colonel
Commands held	China, Belfast.
Battles/wars	Kaffir War of 1851 to 1853 Transkei expedition Waterkloof expedition Second Opium War Taiping Rebellion
Awards	Companion of the Order of the Bath
Memorials	Balmoral Cemetery, Belfast
Alma mater	Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
Relations	Colonel Thomas Moody, Knight (father) Martha Clement (1784–1868) (mother) Major-General Richard Clement Moody (brother) James Leith Moody (brother) Colonel Richard S. Hawks Moody (nephew)

Personal life

Bedford Square

Hampden Clement Blamire was born in 1821[1] on 10 January at Bedford Square, London. He was the eighth of ten children of Colonel Thomas Moody, Knight JP, and of Martha Clement[2][3][4] (1784–1868), who daughter of Richard Clement (1754 - 1829), a major Dutch landowner of Barbados,[5][6] through whom he was related to the cricketer Reynold Clement.[7] Hampden Clement Blamire's siblings included Major Thomas Moody (1809–1839); Major-General Richard Clement Moody (b.1813), the founder of British Columbia and first British Governor of the Falkland Islands; James Leith Moody (1816 - 1896), Chaplain to Royal Navy in China and to the British Army;[8][2][9] and Shute Barrington Moody MICE[2][10][11] (b. 1818), an expert on sugar cultivation.[12][10]

Through his brother Richard Clement,[13] Hampden Clement was the uncle of Colonel Richard S. Hawks Moody (b.1854) and Captain Henry de Clervaux Moody (b.1864).[14]

Moody married Louise Harriet Thompson, daughter of Samuel Thompson, at Belfast. He had two daughters, Sophia Louise (b. 14 October 1862) and Harriet Maud Maria (b. 12 February 1867), and one son Hampden Lewis Clement (b. 28 February 1855, Hong Kong), who was a Captain of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment.[15]

Career

Canada

Hampden Clement Blamire Moody, Interior of Hudson's Bay Company post at Pembina, pen and ink sketch, circa 1847, C-35062 of Public Archives of Canada

Moody entered the service in 1837, became a Lieutenant in 1839,[16] and served with the Royal Engineers in Canada from 1840 to 1848. He was based at Fort Garry, the trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company,[1] of which he was a member,[17][18] and for which, between 1844 and 1846, he performed confidential service, probably behind United States border.[1] In 1845, Moody assisted Edward Boxer and Lieutenant-General William Cuthbert Elphinstone Holloway to investigate Canada's defences and lines of communication against the United States.[19] The following year, he became a Captain and began two years of special service in Hudson Bay Territory. For his efforts, Hampden and associated troops received "favorable notice" of the Secretary of State and Commander-in-Chief.[16]

Hampden Clement's brother, Richard Clement Moody, the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, was also a member of the Royal Engineers.[1]

Hampden Clement Blamire Moody, An ice boat at Penetanguishene, Lake Huron, Upper Canada from Bainbrigge sketch, watercolour, c. 1845, National Archives of Canada, C-11914[20]

Moody was a Freemason, a member of St. Paul's Lodge No. 12 (Ancient York Masons) in Montreal.[21]

He was also an accomplished artist: his paintings typically depict Canadian landscapes,[22][17][23] and are in The National Archives of the United Kingdom,[24] Public Archives of Canada,[25] and Provincial Archives of Manitoba.[26]

Kaffir War

Moody fought in the Kaffir War of 1851 to 1853,[17] during which he received a medal and a notice, for gallant conduct on 13 June 1852, when he had led a detachment of Royal Engineers in Koonap Pass whilst significantly outnumbered.[16] In 1852, he was Senior Royal Engineer on the Waterkloof and Transkei expeditions with Sir George Cathcart.[16]

China

Moody was the Commander of the Royal Engineers across all of China during the Second Opium War (1856–1860)[27] and, from April and May 1862, during the Taiping Rebellion, near Shanghai.[16][17] The Royal Engineers were an elite military force who performed "reconnaissance work, led storming parties, demolished obstacles in assaults, carried out rear-guard actions in retreats and other hazardous tasks."[28] During that time, Moody was made Major in October 1858, Lieutenant-Colonel on 28 November 1859,[16][29][30] and Colonel in November 1864.[16]

During the period in which Moody was the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China, Nichol Latimer, the uncle of the wife of Hampden Clement's nephew Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody[31] and the manager of Russell & Company's Shanghai Steam Navigation Co., was the publisher of the North China Herald, the most influential British newspaper in China.[32][33]

Belfast

Hampden Clement was serving as Commanding Royal Engineer at Belfast when he died on 27 February[34] 1869,[35][34] at 1 Lower Crescent.[16][36] A memorial to him exists at Balmoral Cemetery, Belfast.[37] He was invested as a Companion of the Order of the Bath.[21]

References

1. "North American Collection" (PDF). Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive, Gillingham, Kent. National Museums Scotland. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
2. "Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Moody: Profile and Legacies Summary". Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. University College London. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
3. Hall, Catherine (2014). Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. Cambridge University Press. p. 61.
4. Dorothy Blakey Smith, ed. (1957). The Journal of Arthur Thomas Bushby. 21. British Columbia Historical Quarterly.
5. "Entry for Moody, Richard Clement, in Dictionary of Falklands Biography".
6. "Legacies of British Slave Ownership: Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Moody: Imperial Legacy Details".
7. "Hampden Clement: Profile and Legacies Summary, Legacies of British Slave Ownership, UCL". University College London. 2019.
8. "Entry for Moody, James Leith, in Dictionary of Falklands Biography".
9. Hughes-Hughes, W. O. (1893). Entry for Moody, James Leith, in The Register of Tonbridge School from 1820 to 1893. Richard Bentley and Son, London. p. 30.
10. Parliamentary Papers. H.M. Stationery Office. 1848. p. 129.
11. Newton, W. (1844). Newton's London Journal of Arts and Sciences. p. 293.
12. Scoffern, John (1849). The Manufacture of Sugar in the Colonies and at Home: Chemically Considered. Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. p. A2.
13. "MOODY, Col Richard Stanley Hawks, Who Was Who, A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 2014".
14. "Boer War Memorial, Hereford Cathedral". Retrieved 5 June 2017.
15. "No. 28054". The London Gazette. 27 August 1907. p. 5865.
16. Colburn's United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal. 1869. p. 605.
17. Meehan, John D. Chasing the Dragon in Shanghai: Canada's Early Relations with China, 1858–1952. p. 17.
18. "London Daily News, 22 March 1849". Retrieved 3 June 2017.
19. W. A. B. Douglas. Boxer, Edward. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. 8. University of Toronto. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
20. "Artwork". Canadian Heritage Gallery Online. 1999. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
21. A.T. Freed. "Early History of Freemasonry in Upper Canada" (PDF). p. 104. Retrieved 3 June 2017 – via Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon of the Freemasons.
22. "Moody, Hampden Clement". Government of Canada: Canadian Artists Online. Retrieved 3 June 2017.
23. "Hampden Clement Blamire Moody, sketch, 'Winter Costume at Fort Garry' (1847)", Acc. No. 1957-102-1:A, Library and Archives Canada
24. "Copies of Quebec Sketches, The National Archives UK". Retrieved 3 June 2017.
25. "Interior of Hudson Bay Company post at Pembina, circa 1847. Pen and ink sketch by Hampton Moody", C-35062, Public Archives of Canada
26. "General Survey of Upper Fort Garry and Its Immediate Vicinity", Captain Hampden C.B. Moody, et. al., Provincial Archives of Manitoba, 31 July 1848
27. War Office of Great Britain (1863). Return to an Address of the Honourable The House of Commons, dated 25 June, 1863 : for, "Copy of the Correspondence Between the Military Authorities at Shanghai and the War Office Respecting the Insalubrity of Shanghai as a Station for European Troops:" "And, Numerical Return of Sickness and Mortality of the Troops of All Arms at Shanghai, from the Year 1860 to the Latest Date, showing the Per-centage upon the Total Strength". p. 107.
28. Hammond, Peter (August 1998). "General Charles Gordon and the Mahdi Faith Under Fire in the Sudan". Reformation Society. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
29. "Promotions and Appointments". The United Service Magazine. H. Colburn. 1865. p. 155.
30. Colonel H.G. Hart (1868). The New Army List, and Militia List. p. 94.
31. "York City Archives", York, UK: "Pedigree of Latimer and Moody Families"
32. He, Sibing (2011). Russell and Company in Shanghai, 1843–1891:U. S. Trade and Diplomacy in Treaty Port China. Hong Kong University. p. 11.
33. King; Clarke; Frank H. H.; Prescott, eds. (1965). A Research Guide to China Coast Newspapers, 1822–1911. East Asian Research Centre, Harvard University. pp. 77, 122–133.
34. Hamilton Vetch, Robert. "Moody, Richard Clement, in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885 - 1900, Vol. 38".
35. John Sweetman (2004). Moody, Richard Clement (1813–1887). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19085.
36. The Register; and Magazine of Biography, A Record of Births, Marriages, Deaths, and other Genealogical and Personal Occurrences: I. Nichols & Sons. 1869. p. 344.
37. "XV – Balmoral Cemetery". Belfast Evening Telegraph. 26 April 1907.

External links

Media related to Hampden Clement Blamire Moody at Wikimedia Commons