PEOPLE IN PORTSMOUTH

 

Lives Lived and Lives Lost - Portsmouth and the Great War

HENRY CHARLES MOORE
 
For a serviceman to have died well after the end of the Great War must have been hard to bear for any family, regardless of whether death came from injuries sustained in battle or from disease. For the Moore family the loss must have been worse for having taken place so far away from England.
 
Unlike Henry Charles both his father George and his grandfather William had made their living at sea, and for most of their lives lived within a few yards of it, by the Camber. William was first recorded in the 1871 census when he was working as a merchant seaman and living at 2, East Street with his wife Amelia and six children - Samuel, Elizabeth, William, George, Henry and James. The whole family managed to avoid being recorded for the 1881 census.
 
By the time the 1891 census came round the fourth child, George Moore had married Helen Knighton of Harbin's Yard and together they had found a home at 5 Camber Alley with their first child John who had been born the previous year. George described his occupation at the time as a 'Shot Picker' which probably meant that he retrieved ordnance test fired by the navy across Portsmouth Harbour. Ten years later he had left such muddy employment and become a fisherman. He and Ellen had also moved house a few yards to 19 East Street with John and his seven siblings - Alice (b. 1892), Harriett (b. 1895), Henry Charles (b. 1897), William (b. 1901), Elizabeth (b. 1903), Florence (b. 1906) and Ellen B. 1908).
 
Henry Charles was 17 years old when the Great War began and didn't enlist until November 1915. He signed up for the Hampshire Regiment, wishing perhaps to join friends in the second Portsmouth Battalion, but instead he was assigned to the 1st/6th and sent to India early in 1916. He remained there on garrison duties until February 1917 when his unit was transferred to Mesopotamia. He served through the advance along the Tigris and was present at the occupation of Mosul. He died six weeks after the Armistice was celebrated throughout Europe, but the cause is not known.
 
FURTHER INFORMATION
 
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission list Private Henry Charles Moore (281485), 1st/6th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, died 27/12/1918. Buried at the Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, (Grave Ref: I.C.9.).
 
Henry Moore is remembered on the Anglican Cathedral WW1 Memorial Cross, and on the Cenotaph. He is listed in the 'National Roll of the Great War', Section X, p159.
 
Tim Backhouse
November 2014
With thanks to Cynthia Sherwood for her research.