Major General Hon. Sir Newton Moore

Newton James Moore was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, on 17 May 1870, the son of James Moore, an auctioneer and later the mayor of Bunbury. He was educated at Bunbury Primary and Prince Alfred College, Adelaide. At 14 he became a sales assistant in Geraldton and was later apprenticed to surveyor Alexander Forrest in Perth. As a surveyor from 1886 to 1904, Moore travelled widely across Western Australia. His map became the official guide to the position and extent of the state's forests and timber resources and in 1903 he was a member of a Royal Commission in Forestry. Moore was also associated with the floats of jarrah companies on the London market.

Moore became a member of the Bunbury Municipal Council in 1899 and was mayor of Bunbury from 1901 to 1904. He failed to win the state seat of Bunbury in the 1901 state election but won it in 1904, holding the seat until his retirement from state politics in 1911. A conservative, Moore emphasised his Western Australian birth and advocated immigration, land settlement, taxation on unimproved land, harbour facilities for Bunbury and growth in general. He became minister for lands and agriculture in 1905, and Premier of Western Australia on 7 May 1906. Although lampooned in the press, who called him "Buglepumpkin", Moore became increasingly popular, convincingly winning the 1908 election. He kept the lands portfolio as well until 30 June 1909 when he relinquished it to become treasurer.

As premier, Moore eased the terms of credit offered by the Agricultural Bank so that finance became more freely available to farmers. Some 1,530 km of railways were authorized by his administration, about half serving agricultural regions while the rest ran to gold mining districts. Immigration was stepped up. Income taxes were introduced in 1907, as was the Child Welfare Department and the Children's Court. In negotiations with the Federal government, Moore was able to obtain better financial terms for Western Australia.

Moore was made a Companion of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1908 and a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George in 1910. He resigned the premiership on 16 September 1910 to become Western Australian Agent General in London, moving on to the army's unattached list at the same time. There he fostered immigration and promoted the state's primary produce.

Moore was still in London in May 1915 when he was selected for the appointment as commander of a new AIF Depot at Weymouth, England by the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Sir George Reid. This appointment was accepted by the War Office and confirmed by the Australian Government and Moore was appointed to the AIF with the rank of lieutenant colonel on 29 May 1915. The depot gave men of the AIF who had been sent to England, usually for medical reasons, a place to report to when then recovered, from which they could be returned to their units. Large numbers of evacuations to England during the Gallipoli Campaign caused an expansion of the system and on 2 December 1915, Moore was promoted to colonel and temporary brigadier general, and was appointed GOC AIF in the United Kingdom.

When the AIF began to move its base from Egypt to England in 1916, the GOC AIF, Lieutenant General Sir W. R. Birdwood immediately moved to have Moore's appointment terminated. In the meantime, he asked Moore to assist the DMS AIF, Brigadier General N. R. Howse in selecting camps. Moore and Howse duly toured the camps in the Salisbury Plains area on 19 May 1916 and chose Lark Hill for the 3rd Division and four camps at Rollestone, four at Parkhouse, eight at Perham Down and part of the British barracks at Tidworth. On 25 July 1916, Brigadier General R. S. Browne's Training Depots command was abolished and the training and convalescent depots were combined under Moore, who became GOC AIF Depots in the United Kingdom.

On 14 February 1917, Moore was promoted to major general. The Australian government decided to replace him however, believing that more able officers were available and, on the advice of Brigadier General R. M. McC. Anderson, appointed Major General J. W. McCay to the post in April 1917.

Moore was elected unopposed to the British House of Commons seat of St George, Hanover Square, the seat formerly held by Sir George Reid, as an Imperialist. In his maiden speech he supported the right of women to be members of parliament, something that they had achieved in Western Australia many years before. He represented North Islington from 1918 to 1923 and then Richmond from 1924 to 1932. He was chairman of the Standing Orders Committee and the Overseas Committee from 1919 to 1932, when he resigned to move to Montreal, Canada.

In 1917, he became a director of Western Australia's Great Boulder Gold Mines, and of Hampton Gold Mining Areas. He was also a director of British General Electric, Consolidated Tin Mines of Burma, Carmen Valley Gold Mines, Southern Cross Gold Development, Great Boulder No. 1 and Odhams Press. In Canada, he became president of the Dominion Coal Co., Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co., the Halifax Shipyards and the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation.

He died after surgery in a London nursing home on 28 October 1936. Newton Moore Senior High School in Bunbury was named after him in 1966.

The Official Historian, Captain C. E. W. Bean, described Moore thus:

A commander who, though in former years a keen militia officer, did not, on first appearance, leave an impression of ability. Yet under a bluff exterior he had, though slow of speech and heavy of movement, a wide experience of men and the ability to handle them; and these qualities, together with a politician's sense of what men were feeling, kindly humour, marked determination, and loyal and -- to all who understood him -- simple nature, rendered him far more successful than White or Birdwood had anticipated.

Page created by Ross Mallett
ross@metva.com.au
Last update 8 June 2010