Ralph Denham Rayment Moor

Sir Ralph Denham Rayment Moor KCMG
High Commissioner of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate
In office
6 January 1900 – 1 October 1903
Succeeded by Walter Egerton
Commissioner and Consul-General of the Niger Coast protectorate
In office
1 February 1896 – 1 January 1900
Preceded by Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Personal details
Born 31 July 1860(1860-07-31)
Furneux Pelham, Buntingford, Hertfordshire, England
Died 14 September 1909(1909-09-14) (aged 49)
Barnes, London, England
Nationality British

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

  1. ^ a b Hargreaves, John D. (2004). "Moor, Sir Ralph Denham Rayment (1860–1909)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35086. 

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainHarris, 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

  • Adiele Afigbo, "Sir Ralph Moor and the Economic Development of Southern Nigeria, 1896–1903", Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 5/3 (1970), 371–97
  • Adiele Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891–1929 (1972)
  • Robert Home, City of Blood Revisited: A New Look at the Benin Expedition of 1897 (1982)
  • Tekena Tamuno, The Evolution of the Nigerian State: The Southern Phase, 1898–1914 (1972)
  • J. C. Anene, Southern Nigeria in Transition, 1885–1906: Theory and Practice in a Colonial Protectorate (1966)
  • Obaro Ikime, Merchant Prince of the Niger Delta: The Rise and Fall of Nana Olomu, Last Governor of the Benin River (1968)
Government offices
Preceded by
none
High Commissioner of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate
1900–1903
Succeeded by
Walter Egerton
Preceded by
Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Commissioner and Consul-General of the Niger Coast protectorate
1896–1900
Succeeded by
none