Richard Stanley Hawks Moody

Hawks Moody was born in Strada Reale, Valletta, Malta on 23 October 1854, the eldest son of Major General Richard Clement Moody, the first Governor of the Falkland Islands and founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia,[1][2][3] and Mary Susannah Hawks[4] of the Hawks industrial dynasty, daughter of merchant banker Joseph Hawks JP DL,[5] Sheriff of Newcastle,[6] and Mary Boyd of the Boyd merchant banking family. Mary Hawks's maternal uncles included Admiral Benedictus Marwood Kelly and industrialist Edward Fenwick Boyd.[7] The Moody family had a distinguished history of military service in the British Empire.[8] Hawks Moody's paternal grandfather was Colonel Thomas Moody, JP, Knight of the Order of Military Merit of France,[9][10][11] and his uncle was Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB, Commander of the Royal Engineers in China during the Second Opium War[12] and the Taiping Rebellion.[13][14]

Hawks Moody was born, on 23 October 1854, in Malta, where his father was Commanding Executive Officer of the Royal Engineers,[3] and spent his infancy in the British Columbia, of which his father was founder and Lieutenant-Governor.[1][2][3] Hawks Moody is regularly mentioned in the letters written by his mother, Mary Hawks, to England from various colonies of the British Empire.[15][16] Hawks Moody and his brothers were educated in England at Ludlow Grammar School[17] and Cheltenham College.[4][18] After Cheltenham, Hawks Moody was granted a direct commission, as a sub-lieutenant, in the 3rd Regiment of Foot, on 9 August 1873.[19][4][20] Subsequently, he passed the Staff College, Camberley.[4][20]

In 1887, Hawks Moody married Mary Latimer[4] (d.1936), who was the daughter of John Latimer Esq., of Leeds.[28][36][37] Hawks Moody's father-in-law was the son of Anne Moody, who was the daughter of Dr. George Moody, who was the brother of his grandfather, Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt..[37] Hawks Moody's own maternal uncle was Nichol Latimer,[37] the manager of Russell & Company's Shanghai Steam Navigation Co. and the publisher of the North China Herald, the most influential British newspaper in treaty-port China.[38][39]

Hawks Moody and Mary Latimer had four children:[4]

1. Mary Latimer (b.1883, d.1960). Married Major-General James Fitzgerald Martin at Exeter Cathedral, in 1906,[40] and had one daughter, Mary Charlotte (b.1909).
2. Margaret (b.1886, d. unknown). Married Arthur Graham Brown, in 1914, and had two sons, George Arthur and Thomas Lionel Vyvian. Thomas Lionel Vyvian was educated at Cheltenham College and Royal Military Academy, Woolwich before receiving a commission in the Royal Engineers,[41] with whom he went to Egypt with the 1st Armoured Division. He received the George Medal for service on the Agedabia El Aghelia Road on 17 January 1942.[42]
3. Thomas Lewis Vyvian[43] (b. 4 November 1896,[44] India, d. 21 March 1918, killed in action).[45][46] He was educated at Cheltenham College,[44] Eastbourne College,[43][44] and Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.[43] Subsequent to leaving Eastbourne College, Moody served on HMS Worcester, with the Royal Indian Marine Service, until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, whereupon he entered the Australian Army at Melbourne.[43] He served with the 8th battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment during the Gallipoli Campaign.[43][44] Subsequent to his wounding at Gallipoli, he resigned his commission to enter Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from which he graduated, and was subsequently commissioned, as Lieutenant, in the 1st battalion of Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment),[45] with which he served on the Western Front from July 1916.[43][45][44] On the Western Front, whilst in command of two platoons surrounded by German troops, Thomas was shot by a German officer with a revolver whilst leading his men in an attempt to break through the enveloping German forces.[43][47] He is commemorated at the Arras Memorial, France.[46][45] He died unmarried and without issue.
4. Barbara Bindon[48] (b. 1903, India, d. 1973). Barbara married the choral conductor James William Webb-Jones on 20 December 1930,[49] at Parish Church, Windsor, and had one daughter, Bridget (b. 5 September 1937) who married the musician Peter S. Lyons at Wells Cathedral in 1957.[50][51]

• Hawks Moody, Colonel Richard Stanley (1922). The Historical Records of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), (3rd Regiment of Foot), formerly designated the Holland Regiment and Prince George of Denmark's Regiment, 1914 – 1919. Medici Society, London.

• "Entry for MOODY, Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks, in Who Was Who (A & C Black, Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016)".
• "Obituary of Colonel Richard S. H. Moody, Windsor Paper, July 1930, 'Newspaper cuttings concerning St. George's Chapel and Military Knights of Windsor', Reference No.:SGC M.1042, College of St. George, Windsor Castle". Dean and Canons of Windsor. 1930.