James Leith Moody

James Leith Moody was a British clergyman who was Chaplain of the Royal Navy in China; and of the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea.

Family

James Leith Moody was born at St. Ann's Garrison, Barbados, on 25 June 1816, into a high church landed gentry family that had a history of military service. He was named after Sir James Leith, to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars.
He was the fifth child and third son, of ten children, of Colonel Thomas Moody, CRE WI, Kt., by Martha Clement who was the daughter of the Napoleonic Wars veteran and Barbados landowner Richard Clement (1754 – 1829), and the aunt of the Belgravia cricketers Reynold Clement and Richard Clement.
His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire of Cumberland who was a cousin of the MP William Blamire and of the poet Susanna Blamire. His paternal cousin was the high church clergyman Clement Moody, Vicar of Newcastle.

Siblings

James Leith Moody's siblings included: Major Thomas Moody ; Major-General Richard Clement Moody ; Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB ; and the sugar-manufacture expert Shute Barrington Moody through whom his nephew was Commander Thomas Barrington Moody of the Royal Navy.

Career

James Leith was educated at Tonbridge School, from 1827 to 1835, from which he won a Smythe Exhibition, and at St. Mary Hall, Oxford. He was ordained as a priest, by John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1841.
He served as chaplain to the Royal Navy in China; and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea. He arrived in the Falkland Islands in October 1845, subsequent to which he was found to be 'querulous and eccentric', by his brother Richard Clement Moody, the Governor of the Falkland Islands; and also by his brother's successor as Governor George Rennie. He left the Falkland Islands in 1854.
He was Assistant Chaplain to the British Armed Forces at Aldershot in 1859.
He during 1865 lived at Walmer in Kent. He was Rector of Virginstow, Launceston, Cornwall, from 1876 to 1879, and Vicar of St. John the Baptist, Clay Hill, Enfield, from 1879 to 1885. He retired to West Dulwich where he died on 28 May 1896 whilst living at Clinton House. He left chattels that were worth £4000.
He and his wife Mary, who died on 28 July 1930 at the age of 99 years, are buried at Beckenham Cemetery, England. He is commemorated on a 1994 stamp of the 'Foundation of Stanley Series' that was issued in the Falkland Islands.

Marriage and Issue

Moody on 15 October 1863 married, at Winchester, Mary Willan, who was the daughter of The Rev. Willan, by whom he had five children.
Their son The Rev. Reginald Frederick Moody, who was educated at Dulwich College and at Queens' College, Cambridge, was ordained in Durham as a deacon in 1896 and as a priest in 1897, and became Vicar of St. Stithians, Cornwall, and Rector of Spennithorne, Leyburn, Yorkshire. He married Helen Merian Stuart Moody.