Profile

MOORE, Thomas
(Service number 49640)

Aliases
First Rank	Private	Last Rank	Private

Birth

Date	28 December 1887	Place of Birth	Ireland

Enlistment Information

Date	27 February 1917	Age	29 years
Address at Enlistment	Fairlie
Occupation	Surfaceman (NZ Railways)
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Widower
Next of Kin	Mrs M. OED (cousin), Sutherlands, Canterbury
Religion	Methodist
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	New Zealand Expeditionary Force
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	26th Reinforcements, Canterbury Infantry Regiment, C Company
Date	9 June 1917
Transport	Willochra
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Devonport, Devon, England

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With	Canterbury Infantry Regiment

Military Awards

Campaigns	Western European
Service Medals	British War Medal; Victory Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	25 August 1919	Reason	On termination of period of engagement.

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Gripman

Death

Date	24 September 1963	Age	75 years
Place of Death	Christchurch
Cause
Notices	Press, 25 September 1963
Memorial or Cemetery	Cremated Christchurch
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Thomas Moore was born on 28 December 1887 in Ireland, the son of James and Rose Moore. He may have been the Thomas Moore born in about 1887 at Belfast, County Antrim, a son of James and E. Ann Elizabeth (Elizabeth, née Hadden) Moore. Said Thomas was at home with his parents in 1901, a message boy, and in 1911, a grocer assistant. Thomas had been in New Zealand for five years when he enlisted on 27 February 1917 at Timaru. He was then a surfaceman with NZ Railways at Fairlie and had been called up. A widower and Methodist, he named his cousin as next-of-kin – Mrs M. Oed, Sutherlands, Canterbury. This was Minnie (née Coulter) the wife of Henerich (Henry) Robert Oed. The relationship is not immediately apparent, but Minnie’s father was from Northern Ireland.

Private T. Moore embarked with the Canterbury Infantry Regiment of the 26th Reinforcements, departing from Wellington on 9 June 1917 per the “Willochra” and disembarking at Devonport, England on 16 August 1917. He embarked for the return to New Zealand in London on 8 June 1919 per the “Chupra”, arriving on 28 July 1919. He was discharged on 25 August 1919, on the termination of his period of engagement, and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Thomas married Annie Martha Woodcock (Martha) in 1921. A son was born in 1923 and a daughter in 1932, and they also had a foster daughter. The family lived in Dunedin for many years, Thomas employed as a gripman, retiring to Christchurch in the 1950s. Thomas Moore died suddenly at Christchurch on 24 September 1963, aged 75 years, and was cremated. He was survived by Annie and his three children. Annie died in January 1986. Their son, Alan James Moore, served in World War Two. Agnes Moore who came to New Zealand in 1914 and married Michael Joseph Kelly may have been a sister of Thomas. Minnie (Coulter) Oed was a sister of James Jubilee Coulter who served in World War One, Minnie his next-of-kin too.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [21 December 2025]; NZ Times, 3 July 1919, Timaru Herald, 7 July 1919, Press, 25 September 1963, 23 January 1986 (Papers Past) [21 December 2025]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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