James Leith Moody


James Leith Moody was a British priest who served as Chaplain to the Royal Navy in China and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea.
He was a member of the prominent British imperialist Moody family. He was the third son of Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt.. James Leith Moody's brothers included Major-General Richard Clement Moody, the first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia; and Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB, the Commander of the Royal Engineers in China. He was an uncle of Colonel Richard Stanley Hawks Moody CB.
He was named after Sir James Leith, to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars, and of whom his father was an admirer.

Family

James Leith Moody was born at St. Ann's Garrison, Barbados, West Indies, on 25 June 1816. He was the fifth of ten children of Colonel Thomas Moody, Knight of the Order of Military Merit, a scion of a prominent British imperialist family, and Martha Clement, who was the daughter of Richard Clement, a major Dutch landowner of Barbados. James Leith Moody's siblings included Major Thomas Moody ; Major-General Richard Clement Moody, the first Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia; Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB, Commander of the Royal Engineers in China during the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion; and Shute Barrington Moody , an expert on sugar cultivation in West Indies. His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire, a member of the Blamire family of Cumberland and cousin of the politician William Blamire MP and of the poet Susanna Blamire.
Moody was named after Sir James Leith, to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars, and of whom his father was an admirer.

Education

James Leith was educated at Tonbridge School and St. Mary Hall, Oxford. He was ordained as a priest, by John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1841.

Career

Leith served as chaplain to the Royal Navy in China and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea.
Leith arrived in the Falkland Islands in October 1845, proved himself to be 'querulous and eccentric', and engaged in a feud with his own brother, Richard Clement Moody, the Governor of the Falkland Islands, and, subsequently, a feud with his brother's successor as Governor, George Rennie, although in the latter James Leith enjoyed the favour of the Colonial Office in London. James Leith Moody left the Falkland Islands in 1854. James Leith Moody was assistant chaplain to the British armed forces at Aldershot in 1859. He married Mary Willan, daughter of Rev. Willan, on 15 October 1863 at Winchester, and the couple had 5 children. His wife Mary died on 28 July 1890 at the age of 99 years. In 1865, he lived at Walmer, Kent. He was Rector of Virginstow, Launceston, Cornwall, from 1876 to 1879. He was Vicar of St. John the Baptist, Clay Hill, Enfield, from 1879 to 1885, when he retired to Dulwich, where he died in 1896.
He is commemorated on a stamp, of 1994, in the Foundation of Stanley Series of stamps, which was issued in the Falkland Islands.