Dfyjkt

Colonel Thomas Moody ADC JP; Knight of the Order of Military Merit of France
*Aide-de-camp to the British Colonial Office (1806 - 1849) Parliamentary Commissioner on West Indian Slavery (1821 - 1828) Commander of the Royal Engineers in the West Indies (1829 - 1837)
Monarch	George IV; William IV; Victoria
Personal details
Born	1779 Longtown, Cumbria
Died	5 September 1849(1849-09-05) (aged 69–70)
Nationality	British
Political party	Tory
Spouse(s)	Martha Clement (1764–1868), daughter of Richard Clement of Barbados (1754–1829). M. 1 January 1809.
Relations	Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody (grandson) William Blamire MP (cousin)
Children	10, 8 of which survived their father, including: Major-General Richard Clement Moody James Leith Moody Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody
Parents	Thomas Moody (1732–1796); Barbara Blamire (1740–1806).
Residence	7 Alfred Place, Bedford Square; 23 Bolton Street, Mayfair, London.
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Occupation	Merchant; Soldier; Aide-de-Camp to the Colonial Office; Advisor to East India Company; Director of the Crown Life Assurance Company; Director of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company; Civil engineer; Manufacturer of Gunpowder and small arms.
Committees	Parliamentary Commission on West Indian Slavery (1821 - 1828)
Awards	Knight of the Order of Military Merit of France (1820); Justice of the Peace (1826); DCL (Oxon).
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army and Royal Engineers.
Years of service	1797 - 1849
Rank	Colonel
Commands	Royal Engineers in West Indies (1829 - 1837)
Battles/wars	Napoleonic Wars; Invasion of Guadeloupe (1815)

Colonel Thomas Moody (1779–1849), ADC JP, Knight of the Order of Military Merit of France, was a British Aide-de-camp to the Colonial Office, Royal Engineer, and merchant. He served as the Commander of the Royal Engineers in the West Indies, as the Director of several trading companies in the City of London, and as an Advisor to the East India Company.

Moody was Parliamentary Commissioner into the conditions of African slaves in the West Indies, as which he engaged in a feud with Lord Macaulay. Moody's ultimate conclusion was that the indentured Africans in the West Indies should be taken back to West Africa.

In 1828, Moody and his friend Sir James Stirling offered to colonise Australia using their own capital, but were prohibited from doing so by the British Government.

He was the father of Major-General Richard Clement Moody, the founder of British Columbia and first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, and Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB, the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China, amongst others.

Family and early life

Thomas was born into a family with an extensive history of military service to the British Empire.^[1] He was the third son of Thomas Moody (1732–1796)^[2][3][4] and Barbara Blamire (1740–1806),^[5] who was a member of the Blamire family of Cumberland and a cousin of William Blamire MP, High Sheriff of Cumberland, and a cousin of the poet Susanna Blamire.^[5][6] He was born in Longtown, Cumbria.^[6] His eldest brother, Charles, was a merchant in the West Indies, and his other brother, George, was a surgeon.

Character and society

In character, Moody was obsessed with social hierarchy, discipline, and surveillance:^[1] with what he termed 'the bonds of respect and subordination'.^[1]

Moody was a Freemason and was described by Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse as 'an Officer of high character and reputation'.^[7]
Moody was incorporated in diverse factions of the London establishment.^[8] Inside the Colonial Office, Moody had 'all its archives open to him'.^[9] In the City of London, Moody was an Advisor to the East India Company; a Director of the Crown Life Assurance Company, of 33 Bridge Street, Blackfriars;^[10] and a Director of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, of 5 Coptball Court, London.^[11]
He was a member of the Political Economy Club, at which he disputed with both James Mill and John Ramsay McCulloch, and at which he admired the philosophy of Jean-Baptiste Say.^[8] Moody’s other friends included Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, with whom he had an extensive private correspondence,^[8] and after
whom he named one of his sons;^[6]Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, after whom he named another of his sons;^[12]Sir James Leith, after whom he named another of his sons;^[13]Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse;^[7]Charles-Augustin de Coulomb;^[8]James Macqueen;^[9]James Mangles;^[14]Thomas Hyde Villiers;^[15] and Sir James Stirling.^[16][17]

Moody was a polymath who read in several languages, and in diverse subjects, including philosophy, climatology, sociology, economics, history, and physics.^[8] His reading included the works of Montesquieu; William Petty; William Robertson; Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (whom he knew personally, and of whom he was a fervent admirer);^[8]Johannes van den Bosch; and those of the Africans Toussaint Louverture and Henri Christophe.^[1] He was also influenced by the African Jean-Pierre Boyer, the President of Haiti.^[1] He disputed the economic philosophy of James Mill, that of John Ramsay McCulloch, and that of Adam Smith, and admired the philosophy of Jean-Baptiste Say.^[8]
Moody was also extensively read in abolitionist literature.^[8]

West Indies

Aide-de-camp (1797 - 1821)

Moody arrived in Barbados in 1797,^[18] to serve as mathematics master,^[1][18] writing master,^[18] and Assistant Headmaster,^[19] of Codrington College, at which he served until 1805.^[20] In these positions, Moody demonstrated such an aptitude for mathematics that Lord Seaforth, the British General in Barbados, granted Moody his patronage,^[18] and procured for Moody a direct commission in the Royal Engineers,^[18] which Moody entered as a Lieutenant on 1 July 1806.^[1][21] Moody's first duty was to administer the Office of Ordinance in Demerara,^[1] and he proceeded, subsequently, to distinguish himself in the Napoleonic Wars.^[18] Moody was promoted to Second Captain on 1 May 1811; to Captain on 20th December 1814; and to Brevet Major on 23 May 1816.^[21]

Moody was recruited into the Royal Engineers by Lord Seaforth

Moody served as aide-de-camp to Sir James Leith,^[18][22] who was Governor of Barbados from May 1815 to October 1816,^[22] and Superintendent of the Crown Plantations in Guadeloupe.^[1] Moody named his son James Leith Moody after Leith, of whom he was a fervent admirer.^[13] During his service as aide-de-camp to Leith, Thomas Moody 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.^[23][24] 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.^[21][25][18] Thomas was put on half-pay by the Army, in 1815, at the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars, in which he had served with distinction:^[18] subsequently, he spent one year in Guiana as an attorney for Wolfert Katz, who was the wealthiest planter in the colony.^[1]

In 1816, Moody was responsible for the transfer of groups of rescued Africans to the Crown estates in Guadeloupe. Moody believed that rescued Africans made an 'extremely useful' contribution to the British Empire.^[1] His competent performance in this appointment may have contributed to his subsequent appointment as a Parliamentary Commissioner on Slavery.^[1]

Estates

Moody owned plantations in Barbados by 1816, but he supported the Barbados Slave Rebellions of September and October 1816, which he witnessed^[26] and described as an attempt 'by the mass of the slaves... to gain independence'.^[27]

Thomas owned extensive plantations and estates in the Caribbean, including in Barbados,^[27][1]Guiana, Demerara, Berbice, and Tortola. He was a claimant on insolvent estates in Berbice in 1827 (The Times 4 April 1827 p. 4).^[28] and was awarded the compensation for one enslaved person in British Guiana.^[28]

Moody received a knighthood in the French Order of Military Merit

French knighthood (1820)

In 1820, Moody was knighted by Louis XVIII in the Order of Military Merit for defending the French colony of Guadeloupe. He was permitted by George IV to wear the Cross of the Order whilst in Britain, but not to use the title 'Sir'.^[23][24] Moody received the rank of Major in the British Army for his services in conflicts in the West Indies.^[24]

The Parliamentary Commission on Slavery (1821 - 1828)

In 1821, William Wilberforce proposed to the House of Commons the creation a Commission to investigate the condition of slaves in the West Indies due to omnipresent reports that the Slave Trade Act 1807, which had made the trade of slaves illegal, was being universally violated by wealthy plantation owners, who were redesignating their slaves as 'apprentices' and continuing to trade.^[29][30] 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 each of the commissionerships and were selected by Bathurst.^[1] Moody was a friend of the President of Tortola, the island on which the commissioners were to commence their investigations.^[1]

Dougan was the son of an owner of sugar plantations on Demerara: Dougan stated, 'all my nearest relations and friends were either Planters or Owners of slaves'.^[1] Dougan had lived on Tortola, where he worked as a merchant, privateer, Prize Agent for the Royal Navy, and Colonial administrator.^[1] Dougan was the uncle of Moody's wife,^[1] Martha Clement,^[28] and the son of a slave-plantation owner.^[1]

Dougan was influenced by the zealous idealism of Whig agitators in England, such as the Quaker John Barton,^{[29][30][31][32]} and by the Clapham Sect, with which he was associated.^[8] Moody, in contradistinction, 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, the President of Haiti.^[1] Moody was also extensively read in abolitionist literature,^[8] and had noted that Stephen's recommendation, in 1802, of a period of indenture had provided the basis for both the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and for the Orders in Council.^[8]

Moody and Dougan arrived on Tortola in May 1822.^[1] Moody objected to the interview process recommended by the Commission, in which masters and apprentices were supposed to be interviewed together, because he thought that it were 'calculated to excite complaints of the servant against the master'.^[1] Among the ex-slaverowners interviewed by Moody was Abraham Mendes Belisario, the Deputy Provost Marshal of Tortola, who possessed 17 African apprentices.^[1] As a consequence of the unreliability of the reports of apprentices that such masters provided, which were known as 'Characters' of apprentices, Moody insisted that such reports should not be heard, nor quoted in the official Commission report, but that he and Dougan, the Commissioners, should specify only their own opinions of the masters of the apprentices.^[1]

The Commissioners recorded that many black African apprentices were employed by free black Africans.^[1] When ‘apprentices’ employed by H. C. Maclean, a prosperous merchant who served as Comptroller of the Customs on Tortola, complained to the Commission, Macclean had them beaten. Moody refused to criticise Macclean: Dougan objected to Moody's refusal, but received no sympathy amongst the Colonial administration of the islands. This event provoked a spiteful feud between Dougan and Moody: Dougan complained about the 'state of Irritation and Disunion of the Commission'.^[1] Dougan attempted to reconcile himself with Moody, but Moody refused to forgive him, and, as a consequence, Dougan was compelled to resign from the Commission,^[1] in June 1822, to return to England, and to submit his report to the House of Commons in private.^[30] In this report, dated 20 December 1823, Dougan contends that "free labour in the West Indies is preferable to compulsory labour".^[29] On his resignation, Dougan stated that '[the] repeated attacks, the State of Irritation of Major Moody's Mind, and all hopes of Conciliation [were] ended': however, their 'protracted and unpleasant dispute' continued even after the death of Dougan,^[1] in 1826, subsequent to which his efforts for reform were continued by his daughter, Mary,^[30] between whom and Moody the feud continued.^[1]

In 1824, Moody's friend Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, forwarded one of Moody's papers to George Canning, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.^[8] Subsequently, in 1825, Moody returned to London and presented to the House of Commons an exposition of the reasons for his refusal to sign the report prepared by Dougan in Tortola, in addition to the official Commission report,^[33] which he had completed on his own, without Dougan,^[1] and which he submitted without the consent of Dougan,^[1] that is dated 2 March 1825,^[33] and consists of over 200 pages.^[1] Moody's official Commission report contends that "without some species of coercion African labour would be worthless".^[1][33] The Whig Lord Macaulay described Moody's report as 'in substance, a defence of West Indian slavery', but Moody described his theories as a 'Philosophy of Labour',^[34] and himself as a 'practical philanthropist'.^[1] Lord Macaulay's description is inaccurate because, although Moody desired the employment of Africans, Moody did not desire their employment under conditions of enslavement:^[8] indeed, Moody had supported the Barbados Slave Rebellions of September and October 1816, despite owning plantations in Barbados.^[27]
Moody was influenced by the theory of the climatological determination of the human constitution that was advocated by Montesquieu, and contended that it were a 'physical fact' that only blacks possessed the ability to perform agricultural labour in the 'torrid zone'.^[1][8] Moody was also extensively read in abolitionist literature.^[8]

Moody's ultimate conclusion was that the indentured Africans in the West Indies should be taken back to West Africa.^[1]

Moody submitted a second report, also of over 200 pages, in 1826.^[1] Moody's philosophy also analysed Dutch agricultural colonies, the Bengal peasantry, slavery in India, prostitution in Sierra Leone, slavery in the United States, and the American Colonization Society for African-American settlement in West Africa.^[8]

Moody's philosophy, which incorporated innumerable scholarly references,^[8] won the advocacy of the director of the Commission, Lord Bathurst, and of his Under-Secretary, Sir Robert Wilmot Horton,^[1] with whom Moody had an extensive private correspondence;^[8] of the Tories; and of the advocates of Britain's
colonial empire: Parliament declared Moody's ‘great experience in the control of labour, both slave and free, both African and European, in garrison, and in the field’,^[35] and his notions were highly influential in London society in its entirety.^[8] Moody was incorporated in diverse factions of the London establishment.^[8] Inside the Colonial Office, Moody had 'all its archives open to him'.^[9] Moody was a friend of the imperialist James Macqueen, to whom he provided inside information, which Macqueen would not disclose, throughout the period 1824 - 1828.^[9] Moody was a member of the Political Economy Club, at which he disputed with both James Mill and John Ramsay McCulloch, and at which he stated his admiration for the philosophy of Jean-Baptiste Say.^[8] Moody maintained an extensive private correspondence with Sir Robert Wilmot Horton,^[8] (after whom he named one of his sons), and another with Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham (after whom he named another of his sons), before he returned to the West Indies.^[12] In the City of London, Moody was an Advisor to the East India Company; a Director of the Crown Life Assurance Company, of 33 Bridge Street, Blackfriars;^[10] and a Director of the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Land Company, of 5 Coptball Court, London.^[11] Subsequent to the publication of his reports, Moody became increasingly close to James Mangles, the Director of the East India Company, to whom he subsequently proffered advice regarding the settlement of the Swan River Colony at minimal cost to the British Government.^[14] However, Moody's report provoked the Whigs, evangelicals, and abolitionists to ire.^[1][8]Zachary Macaulay and other abolitionists condemned Moody's philosophy in the Anti-Slavery Reporter,^[1][28] and Lord Macaulay cited Moody's reports in an anti-slavery essay that was published in the Edinburgh Review in
in 1827.^[1] Moody's contentions and his style of expression were condemned by Lord Macaulay,^[36] and in a series of anonymous letters to the Morning Chronicle newspaper, all which provoked extensive defensive refutations from Moody.^[1] Throughout the period in which London political society responded to his reports, Moody maintained a continuous dialogue with the Colonial Office, in which he vigorously refuted the criticisms of his reports, and repudiated the doctrines of his critics in private correspondences and in the newspapers.^[8] Moody's friends Sir Robert Wilmot Horton and Thomas Hyde Villiers MP also wrote articles - under the pseudonym 'Vindex', which Moody had also used - to the Star newspaper, in which they refuted the objections that others had made to Moody's philosophy and defended Moody.^[15] Moody proceeded to testify before the Privy Council, on the matter, in 1828.^[15] Moody's report influenced Lord Bathurst, Sir Henry Taylor, and James Stephen.^[15]

Dougan was infuriated when he discovered that Moody had submitted the report without his consent, and began to compose a response, but he died, destitute,^[30] in September 1826, before he had completed his response.^[1] Dougan's response was completed after his death by his daughter, Mary,^[30] but it was intercepted by Moody, who annotated it extensively with refutations, before it reached Bathurst.^[1] A feud between Moody and Mary Dougan continued after the death of John Dougan.^[1]

For their efforts, Dougan and Moody were each made a Justice of the Peace.^[29]

Moody's offer to colonise Australia (1828)

When the British Government abandoned plans to implement the plans of Sir James Stirling to settle the Swan River Colony, Stirling and Moody, in August 1828, offered form an association of private capitalists that would settle Australia, using their own capital, observing the 'principles' that had been observed by William Penn in the settlement of Pennsylvania, but this proposal was rejected by the government.^[16][17]

West Indian Service, 1828 - 1837

Moody’s residential office at the Colonial Office was abolished in 1828.^[9] His departure from this office was a consequence of his 'unpopularity with the saints'.^[9] Moody returned to the West Indies in 1828, to perform special service in the Dutch Colonies for Sir Robert Wilmot Horton, which he completed in 1829.^[15] During this period in which he were in the West Indies, Moody rose from the rank of Major to that of Colonel in the Royal Engineers.^[2][37][38]
Moody served as Commander of the Royal Engineers in the West Indies from 1829 to 1837:^[39] he was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1830^[18] and had been promoted to Colonel by 1847.^[18]

Later life (1837 - 1849)

The British Government considered Moody to be a highly competent civil engineer and consulted him in regard of several important projects, such as the Caledonian Railway, the West Cumberland Railway, and the Furness Railway, and the embankments at Morecambe Bay and at Duddon Sands. For his civil engineering, Moody received a DCL degree from the University of Oxford.^[7]

The Government appointed Moody as the director of two major government manufactories, one making gunpowder and the other making small arms, at Waltham Abbey.^[7]

Thomas was posted, by the Colonial Office, to Guernsey in 1846.^[40]

Thomas Moody's London residences were 7 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, and 23 Bolton Street, Mayfair. He died on 5 September 1849 at Berrywood House, near Southampton.^[6] In 1852, an advertisement appeared in The Times (02/06/1852 p. 1.) for unclaimed stock of the value of £120 that had been the property of 'Lieutenant-Colonel [sic] Thomas Moody, of Waltham Abbey', and the dividends of which had been unclaimed since 1839.^[28]

Reputation at Colonial Office

It is likely that the illustrious reputation, at the Colonial Office, that Thomas had acquired, contributed to the Office's decision to appoint his son, Richard Clement Moody, to the position of Lieutenant-Governor of the Falkland Islands when Richard Clement Moody was only the unprecedentedly young age of 28 years.^[40] Thomas's reputation may also have contributed to the appointment of Richard Clement Moody as the first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in 1858.^[41]

Marriage and issue

On 1 January 1809, Thomas married Martha Clement (1764–1868), who was the daughter of Richard Clement (1754–1829), a Dutch landowner of Barbados,^[40] and the niece of John Dougan (1765-1826).^[1] Thomas's father in law, Richard Clement, after whom Thomas named his son Richard Clement Moody,^[42] was the owner of the Black Bess (196 slaves) and Clement Castle (220 slaves) estates on St Peter's Island, which passed to Clement's sole remaining son, Hampden Clement, on his death.^[43] Thomas and Martha had 10 children, 8 of whom were living at the time of their father's death.^[6]

1. Thomas (b. 10 December 1809, Barbados, d. 21 March 1839, St. Vincent). Captain of the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot and Major in the Buffs. Died unmarried.


2. Susannah (b. 29 August 1811, Barbados, d. 1884, St Leonards). Died unmarried.


3. 
   Richard Clement (b. 18 February 1813, Barbados, d. 1887, Bournemouth). Major-General in the Royal Engineers, Governor of the Falkland Islands, founder and Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. Married Mary Hawks, daughter of Joseph Hawks JP DL, on 6 July 1852, and had 13 children including Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody.


4. Sophia (b. 1 July 1814, Georgetown, Guyana, d. 1888, Royal Albert Hall Mansions, London).


5. 
   James Leith (b. 25 June 1816, Barbados, d. 1896). Named after Sir James Leith,^[13] to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars,^[18][22] and of whom his father was an admirer.^[13] James Leith Moody was educated at Tonbridge School and St Mary Hall, Oxford. He served as Chaplain to Royal Navy in China and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea.^[44][13] Married Mary Willan, daughter of Rev. Willan, on 15 October 1863, and had 5 children.^[13]


6. Shute Barrington MICE^[45] (b. 21 February 1818, Teignmouth, d. unknown). Sugar manufacture expert.^[45] Shute Barrington Moody was named after Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, a close friend of his father.^[12] Shute Barrington Moody was educated at Eton College,^[46] apprenticed to an engineer at Manchester, and studied sugar refinement in London.^[45] He went to the West Indies in 1843.^[45] He possessed knowledge of the state of sugar manufacture in Demerara, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, St. Croix, Louisiana, and Cuba, where his father owned extensive plantations. Shute reported to Parliament on the state of sugar manufacture in these islands in 1847 and 1848.^[47][48] Shute married Sarah Blackburne,^[49] on 19 January 1847, at St Michaels, Chester Square, Belgravia. They had one son, Thomas Barrington Moody (b. 29 March 1848; bapt. 5 May 1848 at St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, London), a Captain of the Royal Navy who served on HMS Egeria from 1873 to 1881.^[49] Thomas Barrington married Mary Ellen Dewrance, and had one daughter, Joan Barrington Moody, who married Major Alan Holford Walker.


7. Stapleton Cotton (b. March 1819, d. April 1820, Barbados).


8. 
   Hampden Clement Blamire CB (b. 10 January 1821, Bedford Square, d. 1869, Belfast). Colonel in the Royal Engineers and Commander of Royal Engineers in China.^[50] Member of Hudson's Bay Company.^[51] Married Louise Harriet Thompson, daughter of Samuel Thompson, at Belfast. 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.


9. Clementina Barbara (b. 1822 – d. 1864).


10. Wilmot Horton (b. 6 June 1824, Bolton Street, Mayfair, d. December 1853). Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Died unmarried.

References