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Proposed Articles by John Dixon for John Moore Society Magazine

2017 was a year of celebrating John Moore anniversaries - the 50th of his death in 1967 and the centenary of his birth in 1907. In honour of these occasions, it was natural for Simon Lawton, the Curator of the John Moore Museum to wish to celebrate by presenting an afternoon of talks in Tewkesbury in June 2017 designed to shed more light on his writing and history.

I was also honoured that he invited me, as Life President of the Tewkesbury Historical Society, to give a talk “Forever bound to the Place – Tewkesbury’s John Moore, an historical perspective”.

Every time I – a mere historian - re-read the works of John Moore, the more I appreciate him and want to know more about his life and thinking. In particular, I was stimulated by the title of Simon’s talk because I love the sense of irony in Moore’s writing – the conjunction of two apparent opposites in beauty and ugliness.1 I regard John Moore as one of our leading historical figures but I do not approach from a hagiographic perspective.

I wanted to use my own techniques as a family historian and utilise the internet to augment the sterling work of the late David Cole.2

1. “Bourgeois Incest!” - the pooling of wealth and social influence - In Tewkesbury

Any outsider, such as I, who arrives to teach at Tewkesbury School is made aware - very early - that many pupils from “Old Tewkesbury” are related to each other by a formal and informal network of family relationships, almost imperceptible to the onlooker. Without being disrespectful, one would suggest that these relations probably started out spontaneously and the families would then cope with the consequences as best they could – and so often they did a remarkable job, as I discovered as a teacher.

In asking the question “who was John Moore?”, however, one enters the 19th century world - a much more ordered society, where spontaneity could have disastrous financial and social consequences. Wealthy professional families deeply felt the need to chaperone their offspring very carefully into making marriages that would perpetuate the growing wealth and influence of such families in the future. In addition - perhaps? - there was the hope that they would prove happy personal unions.

19th century spontaneity led to the production of very large families and long-term futures depended on finding suitable marriage partners - or providing for offspring who were not so fortunate. This series of articles will explore the consequences for those eccentrics from the family, developing “as ivy wraps round a tree”,3 who could not fit into the desired family pattern – Uncles Clem and Fred who so enrich John’s

writings, along with the familiar characters from “Old Tewkesbury”. John, of course, would constitute as one of these eccentrics, especially when his future was indelibly altered by the untimely death of Harold MOORE in 1915. Those eccentricities proved vital for an aspiring author, as we explore the consequences of his desire to be a worthy foreign correspondent and his accidental - but significant - relationships with Trinidadians. These helped make the finale of Portrait and his book White Sparrow such a moving commentary, years ahead of their time, of relationships between coloured and indigenous people in Tewkesbury and beyond in the 1940s-1950s

We shall also seek to explain just why John appeared a ‘confirmed bachelor’ until he broke all the dynastic rules by marrying someone from the other side of the earth. Yet she brought him such personal happiness and “new” Tewkesbury such a wonderful personality and philanthropist. The irony is that all this was achieved at the expence of those deep-seated and historic

conventions, which inspired the marriage of his parents on 1 July 1905.

1 Simon Lawton, Beauty in Ugliness, 10 June 2018

2 David Cole, John Moore, True Countryman, [Blacksmith Publishing Pershore, 2007]

3 Cole pp29-31

The Blessed but belated event in John's life, 1944

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Thus the marriage of John’s parents, Cecil Charles MOORE and Eliza Georgina MOORE, took place. Such a

union would today have begged a number of questions – the common surname which indicated they were

cousins and the age of the couple which was 43 and 32 respectively. John Moore was, therefore, the

progeny of two mature entrants into the marriage market that united two leading county commercial and

medical families – for better or worse.

The MOORE Wedding Party, 1905

Left to right: Rear Row -Bride's (widowed) mother, Mrs. Ann MOORE, Cecil MOORE, the Groom, unknown brother?, Dr. A. F. Turner, Mrs. P.B. Turner (aunt & uncle of bride)

Front: Dorothy Farrer (friend), Eliza Georgina Moore, the Bride, possibly sister Miss Molly MOORE4

Originally both families hailed from Tewkesbury but, while Cecil’s line remained in the town as commercial leaders, Eliza’s branch took up the medical profession and settled in Moreton-in-Marsh

The Tewkesbury MOORES were part of a farming dynasty, which ‘integrated horizontally’ into law and auctioneering, after allying with the family of DEVEREUX solicitors from Bromyard in Hereford. As it was also the industrial 19th century, part of the family moved towards engineering and textiles, thus marrying into the wealthy WATSON textile dynasty, which emanated from Nottinghamshire. The marriages were amazingly fecund with all the benefits - and problems - that entails.

The century into which John was born witnessed a struggle between rival concepts about marriage - for

family or for love – and John would surely have been a protagonist for the modern concept. Yet the

influence of this large network of families still exists, although it is well and truly disguised. We have

recently opened the DEVEREUX Medical Centre in Tewkesbury, whose name was deliberately chosen to

highlight historical links. Yet who would think that a modern media ‘celebrity’ Charlie STAYT of BBC

Breakfast was a – not too distant - scion of the MOORE dynasty?

4 We are grateful to Robin STAYT for information on identifying the bridal party. He thought Miss Moore might have

been Cecil’s sister, Miss Annie Louisa MOORE; but she was a year younger than the groom at 42.

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A diagram might help explain the intricacies of these dynastic politics:

The Medicinal Moore Family of Moreton-in-Marsh

The impression has been formed that John admired his medicinal family, perhaps because it was more

distant and not so pressing in its demands for conformity. Indeed, he spent his last weekend in Moreton –

“he wanted to go to the places we both enjoyed”5 and that included Warneford House the seat of the

Moore dynasty there.

It had entered the family in the time of John’s

great-grandfather, George (1808-1889), the

surgeon whose work had evidently impressed

Oxford philanthropist, Samuel Warneford. His

benefactor was the son of a wealthy landowning

clergyman who had married well but left no

children. Consequently he “resolved upon

distributing his superfluous means in his lifetime,

and by gradual donations”.6 As well as

establishing the ‘Warneford Lunatic Asylum’ near

Oxford, he also passed on his home in Moreton to

George MOORE, as part of his patronage of

medicine that benefitted the poorer classes.

MOORE’s new found wealth enabled him both to expand his practice and indulge in the chase, thus

establishing himself in local folklore.7 The story of his pausing during his medical round to defeat a bare-

knuckle prize-fighter, stitch him up – and still demand his fee! – has been told many times, including in

Portrait of Elmbury, as such an epic proved irresistible to an author.

George MOORE was also a successful sire as his first marriage produced ten children and, after his wife

died, his second wife - 20 years his junior - produced two more children before he died aged 81.

5 Lucile Moore, diary entry 1967; from Cole p216 fn38

6 Internet – Oxford Biographical Dictionary on-line

7 Cole p3

Warneford House - the base of the family fortune in Morto. Now let as flats [web-Savills]

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His first family produced 8 girls - with its inevitable problems and opportunities. Third daughter Mary Anne

married into the family of Cotswold farmer, Thomas Johnson STAYT. 7th child Margaret produced the wife

of the famous Tewkesbury M.O.H., Dr. Walter Liston. Youngest daughter Penelope Blanche followed the

same path by marrying equally famous Tewkesbury doctor, Arthur Fowell Turner – and they were both

instrumental in organising the marriage of John’s parents in 1905.

At least such a family made dynastic succession easier as the mantle of medicine and fox-hunting fell to

John New MOORE, the father of John’s mother, Eliza Georgina (“Ina”) in 1873 and Lilian (“Molly) 1875.

Dr. John New Moore (1842-1904) [JMM] Annie Shirley (1851-1911)

The fact that he produced only two children could be explained by Cole’s claim8 that his wife refused to bear more because of her addiction to horse riding and fox hunting. Both daughters were educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College but Ina achieved only one year at aged 17 – it was the unhappiest of her life. However, she did have a professionally trained singing voice which was to prove of paramount important in finding a husband. That her father died on 18 May 1904 at the early age of 62 also provided another incentive to wedlock. Although a will for George cannot be traced, the value of John’s will at almost £1.5m would have made him the 10th richest man in Tewkesbury.9 Surely then his daughters would be set fair for a comfortable marriage?

The Tewkesbury MOORE Family

Benjamin Thomas MOORE (1825-1896) was John’s paternal grandfather but his will was only valued at a third of the medicinal grandfather’s will at 2016 prices. However, he was the leading auctioneer of the Tewkesbury area and, indeed, served as Mayor of the Borough twice from 1886-1888. Son of auctioneer and liquor merchant William MOORE - and thus nephew of Dr George Moore - he followed an established family tradition when he married Mary Anne DEVEREUX in 1854. It seemed to be part of a union between two families in which three siblings from one, married siblings from the other.10 I have long wondered whether these unions were a result of a decisive meeting between William MOORE [b 1792, a father of 9] and William DEVEREUX, solicitor of Bromyard, Herefordshire [1798-1861 and father of 6]. Or did the marriage of one lead to introductions, which caused couples to form spontaneously out of affection?11

8 p4; the comment on school was provided by the Memoirs of Daphne Moore.

9 The first 1904 will was revoked in 1906 - with his wife was no longer an executor. See the Appendix for discussion on

relative wealth via will values in 2016. The consequences of this will for Eliza (Ina) will be followed in the next article. 10

Advice from Doug Braund, a family historian, whose interest was inspired by his living at Fisher’s Place, Pendock – Lionel Robert D'Arcy FISHER married Gwendoline MOORE in 1925; she was the grand-daughter of B.T. MOORE 11

Work with James DEVEREUX, of the Tewkesbury medical branch, has been unable to shed any more light.

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The Herefordshire DEVEREUX Family

Often a simple study of the facts undermines such delightful speculation. Firstly only two of the three DEVEREUX daughters were siblings. The first to marry was a cousin, 20 year old Anne Godfrey Phillips DEVEREUX, who married Edward MOORE, the 24-year-old Chemist and 6th child in 1852.12 This union was followed in 1853 by the 4th son, surveyor William Winwood MOORE, aged 30, who married the elder sibling, 25 year old Elizabeth, while the turn of the auctioneer’s Benjamin Thomas came at 29 in 1854, when he married 21 year old Mary Ann. Another daughter Emily was married to a Flintshire GP.13

These must have been very expensive years for the DEVEREUX patriarch but, at least, he was comfortably settling his daughters into a perceived socially progressive family. He died in 1861 but with three children still unsettled. Two were married in quick succession in 1865. Firstly only son, Dr Daniel DEVEREUX, married another MOORE sibling, Helen. They produced 5 children and established the DEVEREUX medical dynasty in Tewkesbury. The recently established Devereux Medical Centre is named after Dr. Daniel, who had founded the Cottage Hospital in Oldbury Road and had two sons who were local GPs, and Mrs. Ethel DEVEREUX, the wife of one, who won the MBE as Commandant of the Mitton VA Hospital in World War I. Youngest daughter Louisa stuck to the legal profession in finding a husband, Churchill Romney, who was a partner with Moore’s and, for a time because of this premature death, and owner of Walton House.14

That left one unmarried daughter, Sarah Maria, whose fate was unenviable in that, although she lived with her married sister, Anne G.P. MOORE, she ended her days in the Hereford County Mental Institution, labelled in the customary brutal fashion as a “lunatic”. Always described of independent means, she did leave an estate valued at £114,600, so presumably her father had even settled her quite comfortably.

The Family of Benjamin Thomas and Mary Anne MOORE

Not only was it a fecund union in producing 9 children of which only 4 were daughters, he presided over

the rise of the MOORE auctioneering family in Tewkesbury which enjoyed its zenith of prosperity and

importance between 1860 and 1938 under the aegis of Benjamin and his eldest son, Thomas Weaver

MOORE.

As the table reveals, this MOORE/DEVEREUX union shows all the hallmarks of dynastic success. They

produced 9 healthy children who all lived to play a significant part in Tewkesbury’s commercial and civic

life. All the males were successful professional practitioners with 2 auctioneers, 2 solicitors and 1 surgeon –

and two of these served as Mayors.

As we have noted, daughters could provide a problem but only one did not marry but Annie Louise played

her part as Mayor’s consort from 1920-3 and, when she died, she was neither impoverished nor confined to

an institution. Eldest daughter Edith married a GP and produced a son who was knighted and who served

in the empire. Unfortunately, she did not live to see this as she died prematurely at 27 years of age. The

next daughter Gertrude again died at the early age of 47 - but she did marry an insurance manager and

they produced a daughter Phyllis who carried DEVEREUX as a middle name. By contrast, youngest

daughter, Lilian, lived to be aged 92 after losing her solicitor husband, Hylton Jessop, prematurely in 1924.

Her two sons in turn followed their father’s profession.

It is interesting that the ‘richest’ of these offspring did not marry. William Henry left Tewkesbury for

Malvern (as many bourgeois contemporaries did) to become a Solicitor. Although he died aged only 43, his

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According to Olive Pain: "Just past Tewkesbury": Old William Devereux, their grandfather, had lived at Bromyard towards the close of the 18th century, and he and his wife Mary had four sons, one of whom was the father of Anne Phillips DEVEREUX who married Edward MOORE the apothecary. Another son, William (1798-1861), became a solicitor in Bromyard, and married Elizabeth Phillips of Bishops Frome. 13

The marriage to Dr. John OWEN does not seem to have been a happy union, despite producing two daughters. From 1871 Emily lived apart from her husband in Tewkesbury, partly as a ‘boarding house keeper’ at 21 Church Street. She died in 1927 in Barnwood Hospital Gloucester and a will cannot be found. 14

Louisa, widowed from 1879-1927, moved to Malvern to raise one surviving son, Francis William, a solicitor.

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estate ranked him as the 16th in the Tewkesbury ‘Rich List’. Reginald seems to have enjoyed a successful

medical career in Churchdown while youngest son, Neville, had all the trappings of success as Town

Coroner amongst other roles and, having married the daughter of industrialist Walter Jackson, they produced

a son, Neville, whose ‘brilliant’ cricketing career was curtailed though illness but who went on to have a good

career in World War II. Yet, in terms of personal estate, his financial achievement was strangely modest.

B.T. MOORE’s

Tewkesbury Dynasty

Late B.T. MOORE [Graphic] Mary Anne DEVEREUX [JMM]

Date Marriage

MOORE [Order of Birth] [MOORE ‘Rich List’/30]

CONSORT Children

1877 Thomas Weaver MOORE [1/9] Auctioneer & Mayor 1855-1938, age 83

Estate: £607,394 = 58/800 or 5th

Ellen WATSON [3/4] aged 22 Dau. of George WATSON, draper [6/8]

1855-1933, age 78 Estate Effects: £186k [199]

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1880 Edith Mary MOORE [2/9] 1857-1883, age 26

Estate: n/a

Dr. Edward Cocks JOHNSTON 1853-1921, age 68

Estate: £95,560 [238]

1?

William Henry MOORE [3/9] 1859-1902, age 43

Estate: £1.706m [16; 1]

never married Solicitor Malvern

0

1886 Gertrude Elizabeth MOORE [4/9] 1860-1907, aged 47;

Estate: £76,310 [276; 18th] 1 daughter Phyllis DEVEREUX MOORE

F H Winder Insurance Manager

Re-married 1924

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1905 Cecil Charles MOORE [5/9] Auctioneer & Mayor 1902-3

1862-1918, age 56 Estate: £335,252.67 [95; 9th]

Eliza G. MOORE 1873-1958, age 85

Father’s Trust Fund: £134,100 Estate: £18,440; [473; 26th]

2

Annie Louisa MOORE [6/9] 1863-1940, age 77

Estate: £73,890 [251; 19th]

Unmarried - Mayoress to Cecil 0

1896 Dr. Reginald DEVEREUX MOORE [7/9] 1867-1955, age 88

Estate: £115,500 [215; 15th]

Charlotte M. Fisher 1868-1930, age 62

Estate: £323,700 [98]

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1898 Lilian MOORE [8/9] 1868-1960, age 92

Estate: £216,800 [146; 17th]

Hylton JESSOP 1868-1924, age 56 [solicitor]

£558,900 [75]

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1898 Neville Gregory MOORE [9/9] Solicitor

1870-1941, age 71 Estate: £120,600 [226; 18th]

Elizabeth Pottle JACKSON [dau. industrialist] 1873-1961, age 88

Estate: £51,310 [334]

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It was the son and heir, Thomas Weaver MOORE who was the dominant character in this dynasty. He

emulated his father by being three times Mayor and made a locally ‘brilliant’ marriage by wedding Ellen, 6th

daughter of the successful Nottingham bleacher and draper, George Watson.15 They produced a family of

6 including a male heir and spare who would normally have secured both the firm and the dynasty.

However, normality was thwarted by the intervention of World War I, which took Thomas Harold in 1915

followed by aspiring doctor, Lionel, in 1916. As we shall discuss subsequently, the loss impacted crucially

on John Moore’s life as he was regarded by Uncle Tom as the natural heir to the Moore Commercial Empire

– however ill-suited John undoubtedly proved to be

John’s father, Cecil Charles Moore, was the 5th child of this dynasty and always seemed to be in the shadow

of his eldest brother. He was a bachelor as well as the junior partner in the auctioneering firm and his one

time as Mayor, perhaps inevitably, followed Tom’s second – this time a two year stint. David Cole has

pointed out that C.C. Moore’s experience of Mayor led very quickly to the birth of John himself.16 The

problem was that he felt that a Mayor needed a wife as consort. During his term of office, he had enjoyed

the benefit of his sister Annie Louisa as Mayoress yet that concern, along with a desire for a chatelaine of

hIs planned mansion, the Tudor House, and perhaps with

his being 43 years of age, allowed him to succumb to the

blandishments of a determined family matchmaker in

Penelope Blanch Turner. She was worried about the fate

of her 32-year-old unmarried niece, Eliza, the elder

daughter of Dr John New MOORE of Moreton-in-Marsh.

The older lady was known in the family as ‘Aunt Paddy’ -

the nickname being awarded from her temperament rather

than any suspected Irish roots. The fact that the two targets

were second cousins was not seen to be an impediment

and what could be better than both being accomplished

singers. As we know the ‘matchmaker’ won the day and

hosted the reception after the traditional Abbey Wedding

in the garden of her elegant Town house in the Crescent, Newton House at 27 Church Street.

Thus the two MOORE dynasties were belatedly intermarried in the halcyon days of Edwardian England. It

was no surprise that child bearing was something of a priority but the fact that the first pregnancy ended in

a miscarriage had significant consequences for the rearing of John, who arrived

on 10 November 1907, followed gratifyingly by a sister, Daphne, in May 1910.

These familial proceedings were all part of the plan in a stable and prosperous

world that all had inevitably anticipated. What they could not have conceived

was the calamitous intervention of a world war. This undermined all social and

commercial preconceptions and precipitated a new world order which provided

both problems and opportunities for the latest scion of the MOORE family, John

Cecil MOORE.

In social terms, therefore, this is the John MOORE as conceived in 1907. He was part of a fascinating interconnection of stable, prosperous families. John was perhaps a rebel against this preordained way of life but such are the tentacles of dynastic dynamics that this famous personality of the 21st century by the name

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Perhaps it is not ironic that the child who made the biggest individual impact on Tewkesbury was the unmarried son, George WATSON, whose legacy secured the Watson Memoria Hall for the Town after his death in 1909. The Watson family lived at Lillycroft House - later becoming the home of John Moore’s best friend, Ted Stephens. 16

Cole pp4-6 for the ‘Early Years’.

The same garden visited for comparative purposes by the author in 2014. Today it is a solicitor’s property.

a formal photograph supplied by courtesy of Charlie STAYT

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of STAYT is, in fact, part of the wider MOORE family.17

Appendix: a Note on the Compilation of the Tewkesbury ‘Rich List’.

The value of an estate, published after probate, is one method of comparing wealth. It cannot be relied on

as precise - but it is indicative.

THS is very grateful to David Drinkwater, a researcher at Gloucestershire Archives, for supplying the initial

list of wills and their values from 1858-1941. I converted the data into a spreadsheet, updating all probate

values to 2016. To achieve this, I used the invaluable website, http://measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

and chose the RPI [Retail Price Index] as a measure of inflation.

During the research for this article, I added the value of probate value of wills of the families by using the

government website, www.gov.uk/search-will-probate. [The basic information is free of charge but it costs

£10 to download a will.] Now there are 800 names from Tewkesbury and beyond on this ‘Rich List’, which

can be studied on www.ths.freeuk.com .

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Charlie STAYT, who kindly wrote the foreword of the author’s book, the Noble Band of Heroes [THS, 2015] was approached because he was a cousin to Thomas and Lionel MOORE, two of Tewkesbury’s sons killed in battle. The author has been grateful over some years for the advice of his father, Robin STAYT, a Gloucester solicitor, whose yeoman ancestor in the Cotswolds had married a Moreton-in-Marsh MOORE daughter in 1858.