Universities at War

John George Moore was born 12 January 1885 in Cumberland, and raised in Whitehaven by his parents, Joseph Barnes Moore and Dinah Ann Moore. He was already an assistant school teacher by the age of 16, and went on to complete his teacher training at Durham’s Bede College from 1905-7. Whilst at Bede College Moore was a keen and able sportsman, playing association football (the November 1915 edition of The Bede magazine reports that he played a ‘splendid game for the Juniors’) and acting as captain of the rugby team from 1906-7. He was also The Bede magazine’s sports editor in the same year. By 1909 Moore was playing rugby union for Cumberland, as well as the cities of Whitehaven and Durham, and is reported in the Manchester Courier as taking part in the county championship match against Northumberland in October. In July 1907 Moore married Margaret Usher (née Jolly) in Durham, and they had three children together: Lilian was born in 1910, Bertram in 1914, and Mildred in November 1916, just 5 months before Moore’s death in France. In 1911 they were living at 35 Clifford Road in Stanley, Co. Durham, and by October 1914 had moved to Whitehaven, at 6 Preston Street. After spending several years working as an elementary school teacher in Co. Durham, Cumberland and Lancashire, John Moore enlisted on 9 December 1915 for the duration of the war with the 15^th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, citing two years’ previous experience in the volunteers. Although there is little information available about his military career, we know that Moore was killed on 10 April 1917, aged 32, during the Battle of Arras which had begun the previous day and in which the 15^th Battalion was engaged. He is buried at Cojeul British Cemetery in St Martin-sur-Cojeul, near Arras, and commemorated on the Bede College 1914-1918 Cross.