Horatio Moule was born in Melksham Wiltshire on  20th October 1805 the sixth son of George Moule and his wife Sarah Hayward. His father, a solicitor and banker, sent him to university at Queens College Oxford where he matriculated on 23 October 1824 at the age of 19; obtaining a BA degree in 1828 and an MA in 1840. ⁽¹⁾

Fordington

From University, he followed in his elder brother Henry’s footsteps and decided on a career in the church. He was ordained Deacon at Bristol Cathedral on 10th Jan 1829 and awarded a stipendiary Curacy at Sutton Waldron of £50pa.⁽²⁾ His brother the Rev. Henry Moule became Vicar at St George’s in Fordington that year, carrying out his first baptism on 28th June 1829. St George’s was a very active and prestigious church and Henry needed a curate so Horatio joined his brother there from the outset, reading the banns of marriage on the 5th, and officiating at his first baptism on 19th July. Horatio actually carried out eleven baptisms for Henry that year although I can only locate his official appointment as curate in Fordington on 10th Jan 1830 when he appears to have taken a drop in income to £40pa. He only carried out 1 baptism in 1830, on 17th February, before he was temporarily appointed Vicar of the parish of Box in Wiltshire on the 14th April.⁽³⁾

Parish of Box in Wiltshire

The Vicar of Box since 1799 had been the Rev Isaac William Webb Horlock but he became ill and had died by April 1830. I think the family may have held the advowson of the parish as they decided that Isaac's replacement would be his third son who went by the equally impressive name of Holled Darrell Cave Smith Horlock. The problem was that he was still at university in Oxford at Magdalen Hall where he was awarded his BA that year (1830). He was quickly ordained into the church as a deacon and immediately appointed as assistant stipendiary curate to the parish on the 18th October 1830. He was given a generous stipend of £50pa and possession of his fathers vicarage, garden and offices. Horatio Moule was therefore appointed as Vicar in April to hold the fort until Holled could take over which he did as soon as he was made a priest on 27th March 1831. Under the terms of the covenant Horatio was them obliged to resign which he did the following day.

On the 1st June 1831 Horatio was in Bath to conduct the wedding ceremony of his elder brother Charles Thomas Moule, who had also been born in Melksham and was about 5 years his senior. (Charles had followed their fathers profession and become a Solicitor and according to the Bridgewater & Somerset Herald newspaper he married an Anne Falkner, a native of Bath, who at the tender age of 18 would have been 13 years younger than her groom).

I am mindful of the fact that 1831 was the date of the Swing Riots when we know his brother Henry Moule was experiencing difficulties in Fordington as his wife wrote about:- ⁽⁴⁾

'the rick-burnings' describing 'the almost nightly alarms, the constant tidings of violence and disorder, and the energy and courage of Henry who organised patrols and served on them, and meanwhile retained the good word of the poor'.

There is no doubt that difficulties continued for some time and Horatio is shown as carrying out two baptisms in Fordington in January 1832 (once again recorded as a curate). On 7th July 1832 Horatio was at St Georges Church for the baptism of his brother Henry’s 4th child, another son, and was honoured when they gave the boy his own name of Horatio. To avoid confusion the family referred to the child as Horace, a name that he went by for the rest of his life. This event seems to have marked Horatio's permanent return to Fordington as between August 1832 and February 1837 when he left the parish he was in almost constant attendance officiating at another 345 baptisms, marriages and burials in St George’s church.

Official Records also seem to indicate that Horatio was licensed to officiate at Nether Cerne which is 5 miles North of Fordington on 29th May 1833 but it is clear that he continued to live and officiate at Fordington throughout this period.

Marriage

It is not clear where Horatio went after leaving Fordington⁽⁵⁾ (where he last officiated at a burial on 29th Oct 1837) but he married in the Church of Holy Trinity in Clapham Surrey on 9th March 1841 to Elizabeth Mary Hughes ⁽⁶⁾. She was the daughter of Thomas Hughes from Dublin and Mary Anna Stokes and had been born on 17 Oct 1820 in Finsbury London and baptised there on 21st December in St Luke’s Church. He next turns up in Calcutta India in 1845.

Chaplin of St Paul’s Cathedral - Calcutta India

From 1845 to 1875 Horatio served as Senior Chaplin of St Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta.

St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta

He must have arrived at an interesting time as the Church had been devastated previously by an earthquake and construction of the new Cathedral commenced in 1839, and mainly due to the efforts of  Bishop Wilson, was completed in 1847 after Horatio’s arrival. He is also reported to have visited Sarawak in 1851 for the consecration of the Church of St Thomas the Apostle on 22nd January that year.

He was still at the Cathedral when the Indian Mutiny occurred. Fires first broke out in Calcutta on 24 January 1857 and the war officially started on March 29th at the Barrackpore (now Barrackpur) parade ground, near Calcutta. The picture opposite shows one of a number of memorial tablets erected inside St Paul's Cathedral in Calcutta. This one is to 16 of the officers who fell in the Indian Revolt in the years 1857 & 1858.

Descendants ^{(6 & 7)}

Horatio and Elizabeth had a son Horatio (Horace) Frederick D’oyly Moule (1845-1925) who was made a companion of The Order of the Star of India for services to the Indian Empire and married Banna Horsford (1845⁽⁸⁾-1913), and raised their own family in India. They had five children, Gwendoline Power Moule (Bap 18 Aug 1872 Mirzapore West Bengal); Gerard Bannatyne Moule (bap 1st Aug 1874 West Bengal); Hugh Elliot Moule, (bap 22 Nov 1875 West Bengal); Vera Banna Moule (bap 27 July 1879 - died 1949) and Doris Isa Moule (bap 19 Nov 1883 at Moradabad Uttar Pradesh India). Hugh went on to serve with in the army reaching the rank of major with the Gurkha Rifles, and was killed in action 22nd May 1915. Vera also seems to have stayed in India, marrying Kellow Chesney who reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel with the 15th Lancers Indian Army and died in 1919. The 15th Lancers seem to have been posted to Mesopotamia at this time. Both Kellow and Vera’s ashes are interred in the church wall beneath their memorial in Christ Church Mortlake

Horatio Moule (1805 – 1886) eventually returned to England and became the rector of Charmouth in Dorset where he served between 1875 and 1879. He then moved in 1880 to Road-cum-Woolverton in Somerset until his death at the age of 80 on 3rd June 1886.

His wife Elizabeth Mary died on 13 September 1906 in the district of Newton Abbott at the age of 86.