Moore, Hugh
Private
No. 437255, 46th Battalion, Canadian Infantry (Saskatchewan Regiment)
Died of wounds on Wednesday 25 October 1916 (aged 37)
Buried:
Adanac Military Cemetery, France (Grave VI. C. 5)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Canadian Virtual War Memorial (CVWM)
Canadian First World War Book of Remembrance
Newtownards and District War Memorial
Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) Roll of Honour 1914 – 1919 for
Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards
BIOGRAPHY
Hugh Moore was born on 16 August 1879 in Greenwell Street, Newtownards (he declared 16 August 1880 at attestation) and he was the only son of Hugh Kennedy Moore and Mary Moore (nee Kyle) who were married on 20 February 1877 in Ravara Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. Hugh Moore, a blacksmith from Newtownards, was a son of Kennedy Moore, a labourer. Mary Kyle, a dressmaker from Newtownards, was a daughter of James Kyle, a mechanic.
The Moore family lived at 12 Greenwell Street, Newtownards.
Hugh Moore Senior worked as a master blacksmith and he and Mary had four children before Mary died of double pneumonia on 26 November 1883:
Agnes Jane (born 5 July 1878 in Greenwell Street, Newtownards)
Hugh (born 16 August 1879 in Greenwell Street, Newtownards)
Eleanor Anna (born 19 February 1882 in Greenwell Street, Newtownards)
Mary (born 8 November 1883 in Greenwell Street, Newtownards)
A newspaper report of the day described Hugh Moore Senior as ‘a blacksmith and horse-shoer of more than ordinary cleverness’.
Hugh Moore Junior worked as a joiner before he moved to Canada and there he worked as a farmer. He enlisted on 17 May 1915 in Edmonton, Alberta and it was noted in his attestation papers that he was 5 feet 8½ inches tall with a fair complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. He had a scar on his nose.
Private Hugh Moore (No. 437255) served with the Canadian Infantry and he sailed from Halifax to Liverpool aboard the SS Missanabie on 18 April 1916, arriving on 28 April 1916.
Private Hugh Moore (No. 437255) was 37 when he died of wounds on 25 October 1916. Initially he was reported as wounded and missing in an area known as ‘Death Valley’ and his death ‘on or since that date’ was officially presumed in June 1917.
By then his father was dead (aged 79, he died of chronic endocarditis on 13 June 1916) and his sisters placed a For King and Country notice in the 30 June 1917 edition of the Newtownards Chronicle. Two eye-witness reports from his comrades clarified the circumstances of his death:
- ‘He was in 13th Platoon. Near Courcellette we were attacking on 25 October. We only got part of the way when we had to retire back to our trenches which we held. I saw Moore lying badly wounded in a shell-hole near our trench. I stopped and dressed his wounds. Stretcher bearers took him to the dressing station’.
- ‘When he was struck his entrenching tools were on his back; the bullet passed through them. I saw him lifted and taken to the dressing station and I am told he died there’.
Private Hugh Moore’s isolated battlefield grave was located in 1924 and his remains were re-interred in Adanac (Canada spelt backwards) Military Cemetery. He is commemorated on Newtownards and District War Memorial and in the PCI Roll of Honour for Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards.
In the 2 November 1918 edition of the Newtownards Chronicle there was an Our Heroes – In Memoriam notice from his sister Mollie in Winnipeg which contained the verse:
I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead, he is just away;
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be since he lingers there;
And you, Oh, you, who wildly yearn
For the old-time step and the glad return,
Think of him still as the same, I say
He is not dead; he is just away.
Private Hugh Moore (No. 437255) is commemorated on Newtownards and District War Memorial and in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) Roll of Honour 1914 – 1919 for Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards.