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Hampden Clement Blamire Moody
Commander of British Royal Engineers in China From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB (1821 – 27 February 1869) was the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China throughout the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion.
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Personal life
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Hampden Clement Blamire Moody was born on 10 January 1821,[1] at Bedford Square, London, into a traditional merchant family with a history of military service.[2] He was eighth of ten children[3][4] of Colonel Thomas Moody, CRE WI, Kt.,[2] and of Martha Clement (1784–1868) who was the daughter of the landowner Richard Clement (1754–1829):[5][6] and through whom he was related to the Belgravia cricketers Reynold Clement and Richard Clement.[7] His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire of Cumberland who was a cousin of the MP William Blamire and of the poet Susanna Blamire.[8]
Hampden Clement Blamire Moody's siblings included Major Thomas Moody (1809–1839);[4] and Major-General Richard Clement Moody (1813–1887) (who was the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the founder of British Columbia);[4][3][9] and James Leith Moody (1816–1896)[9][4][3] (who was Chaplain to Royal Navy in China, and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, and Gibraltar, and Malta, and Crimea);[10] and the Etonian[11][12] engineer[13][14][15] Shute Barrington Moody (b. 1818).
Issue
Hampden Clement Blamire Moody married Louise Harriet Thompson, who was the daughter of Samuel Thompson, at Belfast.[citation needed] They had two daughters, Sophia Louise (b. 14 October 1862) and Harriet Maud Maria (b. 12 February 1867), and one son Captain Hampden Lewis Clement (b. 28 February 1855, Hong Kong) of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment.[16]
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Career
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Canada
Moody was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1837 and promoted to Lieutenant in 1839.[17] He served in Canada from 1840 to 1848, for which he was based at Fort Garry (which later became Winnipeg) which was a trade-base of the Hudson's Bay Company,[1] of which he was a member,[18][19] and for which, between 1844 and 1846, he performed confidential service behind the United States border.[17][1] In 1845, Moody assisted Edward Boxer and Lieutenant-General William Cuthbert Elphinstone Holloway to investigate Canada's defences and communications against the United States.[20] Moody during 1846 was promoted to Captain and began two years of special service in Hudson Bay Territory, for which he received 'favorable notice' of the Secretary of State and of the Commander-in-Chief.[17]
Moody was a freemason of St. Paul's Lodge No. 12 (Ancient York Masons) in Montreal.[21]
Moody was an accomplished artist[18] whose typical paintings depict Canadian landscapes,[23][18][24] and are in The National Archives of the United Kingdom,[25] Public Archives of Canada,[26] and Provincial Archives of Manitoba.[27]
Kaffir War
Moody fought in the Kaffir War of 1851 to 1853,[18] for which he received a medal and a notice for his gallant conduct on 12 and 13 June 1852, on which he had led a significantly outnumbered group of Royal Engineers in Koonap Pass[17] during a shootout against rebel Khoekhoe between wagons and dwellings.[28] Moody was Senior Royal Engineer on the 1852 Waterkloof and Transkei expeditions with Sir George Cathcart.[17]
Hong Kong and China
Moody was the Commander of the Royal Engineers across all of Hong Kong and China during the Second Opium War (1856 – 1860)[29] and, from April and May 1862, during the Taiping Rebellion, near Shanghai.[17][18] The Royal Engineers were a land-marine force who performed 'reconnaissance work, led storming parties, demolished obstacles in assaults, carried out rear-guard actions in retreats and other hazardous tasks'.[30] Moody was promoted to Major in October 1858, and to Lieutenant-Colonel on 28 November 1859,[17][31][32] and to Colonel in November 1864.[17]
Belfast
Moody was serving as Commanding Royal Engineer at Belfast when he died on 27 February 1869,[33] at 1 Lower Crescent.[17][34] A memorial to him exists at Balmoral Cemetery, Belfast.[35] He was invested as a Companion of the Order of the Bath.[21]
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