Ralph Denham Rayment Moor

Sir Ralph Denham Rayment Moor KCMG (31 July 1860– 14 September 1909), first high commissioner of the British Southern Nigeria Protectorate, born on 31 July 1860 at The Lodge, Furneux Pelham, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, was son of William Henry Moor (c.1830–c.1863), surgeon, by his wife Sarah Pears. Educated privately, and destined for business, he engaged in 1880–1 as a learner in the tea trade. On 26 October 1882 he entered the Royal Irish Constabulary as a cadet, and becoming in due course a district inspector resigned after involvement in a divorce case on 9 February 1891.^[1]

In March 1891 Moor took service under Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, the Consul-General of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, as Commandant of Constabulary in the protectorate. In July 1892 he was appointed by the Foreign Office vice-consul for the Oil Rivers district, and from 6 September 1892 to 15 February 1893 acted as commissioner. During January 1896 he served the office of consul, and on 1 February 1896, when the district was formed into the Niger Coast Protectorate, he was made commissioner and consul-general for the territory, and consul for the Cameroons and Fernando Po.

When in 1900 the protectorate passed from the Foreign Office to the Colonial Office, Moor became High Commissioner of Southern Nigeria and laid the foundations of the new administration, his health failing, he retired on pension on 1 October 1903. He then allied himself with Sir Alfred Lewis Jones; he gave valuable advice on West African affairs, and aided in the development of the British Cotton Growing Association. He also served on certain committees at the nomination of the secretary of state.

Moor became C.M.G. in 1895 and K.C.M.G. in 1897. He married in 1898 Adrienne Burns, née Shapland (born. circa. 1871). He was found dead in bed at his residence, the Homestead, Barnes, on 14 September 1909; having committed suicide by poison.^[1] He was buried at the new Barnes cemetery. The coroner's jury determined that "the poison was deliberately taken whilst temporarily insane after suffering acutely from insomnia", they had heard evidence that Moor had suffered for the last four years on his return from Africa with malarial and backwater fever that induced insomnia.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Harris, Charles Alexander (1912). "Moor, Ralph Denham Rayment". In Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement​. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 643. http://www.archive.org/stream/dictionaryofnati22lees/#page/642/mode/2up. Retrieved 2011-03-27. 

Further reading