SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Ahead of Remembrance Day next month, using the Minster archives, DAVID MORGAN looks back on the career of a survivor, and war hero, who became a churchwarden
Church warden: Leslie Moore, who was honoured for his service in war and in peace
Remembrance Day on November 11 is an opportunity to recall not only those who lost their lives, but servicemen and women who survived the fighting and returned to civilian life. This is a story of one such Croydon survivor.
On a plaque in the belfry at Croydon Minster, celebrating a special peal of bells in 1937 for the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, is etched the name of our survivor, John Leslie Mackenzie Moore. In the late 1930s, he was one of the churchwardens.
A newspaper report from 1939 stated that Leslie Moore had been re-elected as the people’s warden and he hoped that “he could see the debt on the church wiped out before he relinquished the parochial purse”.
Moore was well versed in church matters, being the son of the Rev Charles Moore, a respected academic and vicar whose final ecclesiastical appointment was as a Canon of Canterbury Cathedral.
Leslie Moore completed his education at Pembroke College, Oxford, beginning his degree course in 1907. While at university he was a member of the University Contingent of the Officer Training Corps.
A practical occupation was always the target for Moore, who attended the Crystal Palace School of Engineering in 1912, passing various exams including railway construction and applied mechanics. Not long after the outbreak of World War I, Moore signed on for military duty. From November 1914 he became a private in the 28th Company, London Regiment, the Artists Rifles, with a regimental number 2895.
Ring a bell?: the plaque marking the auspicious bell-ringing at the then Parish Church for the 1937 coronation
In May 1915 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the railway operating division of the Royal Engineers, where he stayed for the rest of the war. He was promoted to first lieutenant in January 1916 and made Captain six months later. He would eventually become Major Moore.
Moore’s war record revealed that he spent time in both France and Belgium, and was mentioned in dispatches – commended by his superior officer for a particularly brave or noble act – in 1916 and 1918.
March 21 1918 was the biggest military and railway test that Moore had ever faced.
On that day he found himself in woodland at Arras, just as the German spring offensive was beginning. Operation Michael, or Kaiserslacht, was a Somme offensive involving 64 divisions – more than 1million tropps – along a 50-mile front, launched by the Germans in a desperate last-ditch effort to force a way through the Allied lines.
Arras was at the very northern end of that push. Early breakthroughs for the Germans resulted in thousands of prisoners being taken. Various Allied units were rapidly deployed to plug the gaps in the line. Moore’s job with the Royal Engineers was to manage the railway line and keep the supply trains running.
For his bravery and expertise on that day, he was awarded the Military Cross. It was then Britain’s second-highest military decoration (only the Victoria Cross was more highly regarded), only awarded to officers for “gallantry during active operations against the enemy”.
Moore’s own citation read: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty to maintaining the railway service under heavy shell fire. By his action the withdrawal of railway artillery was carried out and all supplies evacuated.”
Caught up in the same German offensive was a nursing sister, Kate Luard. She wrote in her diary for March 21 that that they were caring for a thousand patients in a field hospital near Arras. A train managed to get through and took 300 of the casualties away.
Train evacuation: Nurse Kate Luard helped get wounded soldier away from the Arras offensive
A second train arrived later in the afternoon. “There were 50 trucks of the ‘eight chevaux or 40 hommes type’,” she wrote of the train’s arrival.
“Never was a dirty train so welcome – 150 walking wounded boarded and the remaining spaces were taken up by stretchers.”
This was a significant emergency evacuation. Keeping the railway open saved lives and Moore was key to that.
This would have been a task that Moore would have relished, dangerous or not, as he was a railway man to his core. When he left Pembroke College in 1909, he joined the South Eastern and Chatham Railways, completing an apprenticeship in all technical engineering aspects areas of the company. He also gained a first-class certificate in Elementary Mechanical Drawing in 1911.
Moore’s practical skills and technical knowledge were eminently suited for life with the Royal Engineers.
Major Moore MC, on his return to civilian life, went back to his railway roots, rejoining the SECR. It says much about the character of the man that although he would be entitled to be known by his military rank (and that MC), as many of the time would do, Moore chose not to do so.
He had married Lucy Whittam, a clergyman’s daughter, in January 1918 when he was home on leave. The ceremony was held at St Luke’s Church, West Norwood. Their son John was born in 1922 and in the 1939 census the family could be found living in 42 Birdhurst Road. Their son, a student of motor engineering, was still living in the family home at the outbreak of World War II.
Railway cutting: a newspaper report on Moore’s findings into the Beighton crash
Moore rose through the railway industry ranks and by 1939 was a “railway inspecting officer”. He was the author of the official investigation report into the rail crash at Hindley on October 31 1939. In the disaster, a fire brigade train which was returning at 5am after extinguishing a fire at Ince Moss refuse dump failed to stop and hit the buffers. The captain of the Brigade, who was also the guard on the train, died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash and four of the remaining eight members of the crew were seriously injured.
Driver error and wartime blackout restrictions were the reasons for the crash.
With the outbreak of war, Moore joined the local Home Guard as a lance corporal.
After leaving the employ of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway, Moore was promoted to work in the Ministry of War Transport, with the title Senior Railway Employment Inspector. It fell to him to investigate a terrible wartime tragedy when 14 soldiers were killed in a train crash at Beighton, near Sheffield. There wasn’t a mention of the accident at the time in the newspapers or on the news reels because the war was not going well. This was February 1942, and bad news of this kind was censored.
Moore’s report lays out the facts without much blame. Railway carriages of a slower train, parked in a siding, had protruded out onto the mainline and caught the side of the passing troop train, ripping it open, causing horrific injuries and death. Miners ran from the nearby pithead to the crash site to give help and assistance where they could.
Moore was awarded the OBE in 1944 for his services to the country as a railway inspector.
His last major accident report was published in December 1953, about a crash at Granton Harbour in Edinburgh on April 24, involving a coal train and two engines. The stationary train consisted of 29 wagons loaded with coal. One driver and one guard were killed. The accident happened on a slight gradient.
Moore determined that the causes of the accident were excessive speed and driver error. He was described in this document as “Railway Employment Inspector, Ministry of Transport and Aviation”.
He retired the following year, by which time he was living in Chippenham, Wiltshire.
Moore died in July 1968. His was tale of a life well-lived, one of service and dedication.
He came back from the Great War. Not all the Artist Rifles who joined up at the same time as him were so fortunate. Pembroke College stated that he was one of 387 alumni who went to fight with 60 losing their lives in the conflict.
Major Moore MC will have remembered the casualties, often.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Brewer’s business empire that flowed with the River Wandle
- Thornton Heath woman’s long fight for equality and rights
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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