Bell ringing at St George’s - Fordington
©Picture 2012 M Russell OPC for Fordington
After a happy and studious childhood he was expected to help his father in the running of the church and parish and attend to the constant stream of important people and students that came to stay in the busy household. According to his brother Handley, he was the mechanician of the family. Before he went to Cambridge, which he did at the age of 20, he actually superintended the improvement of the peal of bells in St Georges Church at Fordington, and then trained a team of bell ringers. He was a constant encouragement to Handley, the youngest of the brothers, and managed to get him to ring a peal of bells even though he was still only 8 years old. He was adept however at all manner of tools and he taught Handley for example how to use the old lathe they had.
He was sent initially to Caius College in Cambridge which he entered on 26 June 1850. By 1851 he was still studying, but his place in the house had been given over to paying pupils so when he came home between terms he lived with his elder brother George Evans Moule at Cuckolds Row in Fordington. He matriculated in that year but then transferred to Corpus Christie College on 26 June 1852, where he obtained his BA degree in 1855 and an MA in 1858.
Frederick like his father & elder brother George settled on a career in the church and in 1857 he was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Hamilton at Salisbury Cathedral. The parish records for St Georges church show that he carried out baptisms in Fordington as a curate from 27th Dec 1857. It was not however until In 1859, as a priest, that he was formally licensed to his fathers parish in Fordington where he continued to operate as Curate until October 1868.
In 1864 he took on the additional responsibility of Chaplain to the newly opened Dorset County Asylum. This was quite an extensive set of buildings set in 56 acres of land situated a mile from Charminster and about two and a half miles from Fordington. When it opened in 1864 it had 320 patients roughly split evenly between males and females. Some patients came from as far away as Oxford and Abergavenny.
Frederick seems to have passed these responsibilities onto a new Chaplain the Rev Hyson in the spring of 1867, presumably in preparation for his own Ministry. The picture opposite shows the Asylum Chapel which was built in 1880 to replace the somewhat smaller one known to Frederick during his time there. There is a note in the parish burial register that he departed Fordington for Yaxley on 15th January 1869.
Picture taken 1869
It is not clear how Frederick met his wife but he married Mary Alicia Foster on the 22 August 1860 in her home parish of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. Mary had been born in Hitchin on 13th June 1841 and baptised there on 29th September that year. She was the daughter of Oswald Foster MRCS (1809-1892) a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and a general practitioner by his wife Martha. Mary was therefore 19 years old when she married, and 11 years younger than Frederick.
They settled into the house next door to his fathers vicarage in Fordington called Salisbury House and like his father he took in boarders as students for university. Also in the house in 1861 were his two servants (Katherine Norris and Mary Ann Churchill), and James White a parochial school master and his wife Mary Jane who would have been paying rent.
I have located the following children from this marriage:-
Margarette Alice Moule (1861-1931) Born in the last quarter of 1861 she was baptised at St Georges Church Fordington 12th Jan 1862. She seems to have been interested in the origins of the Moule family from an early age as correspondence in 1885 is said to have survived between her and a Charles George Moule (1839-1916). By 1891, aged 29, she was describing herself as an authoress and staying in Regents Park London with a Charles Dickens and his family who was a journalist and printer by trade. At the time she appears to have been visiting one of his daughters who was also an authoress, but when Charles died she continued to live with the family and in 1901 Charles widow Elizabeth described her as a cousin. She was supporting herself by working as a private secretary. By 1911 she was of independent means living at 38 Charleville Road in North West Fulham in London and is said to have hired the services of the well-known genealogist Charles Bernau to research her family. She is reported to have died in 1931 but I have not been able to locate a burial record.
Frederick Oswald Moule (1864-1915) Born at the tail end of 1864 he was baptised at Fordington on 31st Jan 1865. He became a railway engineer and was in Ipswich in 1891 before he met and married Maude Gibling BEHAN in the 3rd quarter of 1900. She was 10 years his junior having been born in Geelong, Victoria in Australia circa 1874. She was however a British subject by her parentage. He died on 23rd July 1914 with probate of his will being granted to his widow on 16th January 1915 when he left £4,578.19s.6d
Francis Henry Moule (1865- 1929) born December quarter of 1865 and baptised 23rd Nov 1865 in Fordington. He became a bankers clerk living in Hackney London in 1891 and Brighton by 1901. He married in 2nd qtr 1902 to Kathleen Helena POWER (b.1871 Peterborough ) and died at The Limes Shorncliffe-road Folkestone in Kent on 14th July 1929 leaving an estate of just £279.9s.8d
Edith Mary Moule (1868-) She was baptised at St Georges Church in Fordington on 30 Nov 1868 and became a Governess of a school in Hertford by the age of 22. She married Alan Gwyn BLYTH MA (1856-1930) at Norwich in 1894 a Clerk in Holy Orders. Alan was the son of Rev. William BLYTH and born on 14th July 1856 at Fincham School Uppingham. He was educated at Cambridge where he matriculated at Christ's College in 1875 being awarded his BA Degree in1879 and MA in 1888. He joined the church being ordained a deacon in 1879 and a priest at Norwich in 1880. He served his curacy at Feltwell in Norfolk (1879-1884) and then at St Philip's Heigham (1884-1888) before being made Vicar there in 1888 where Edith joined him after their marriage in 1894. He was made Rector of Northrepps in Norwich in 1904 and had two daughters (Mary Alicia Blyth and Janet Gwyn Blyth). Her husband died 27th Sep 1930 leaving an estate of £3,878.12s. Edith died at The White House Southreps Norfolk on 20th Sep 1944 leaving an estate of £10,087.16s.11d
Mary Helen Barbara Moule (1877-1952) according to Census returns she was born at Yaxley Vicarage Huntington c1877 but I could not trace in the GRO. After the death of her father she continued to live with her mother until she married a Missionary Thomas C Des Barres on 23rd July 1914 at Erpingham Norwich. See a photograph of her wedding below.
Marriage of Thomas Cutler Des Barres to Mary Helen Barbara Moule - 1894
© Picture 2013 by kind permission of Suzanne Kelly
Rev. Thomas Cutler Des BARRES BA (1867 - 1948) Thomas was the son of the Rev. Thomas Cutler Des BARRES K.C.W. NS. MA. (1832 - ) by his wife Eliza. His father a graduate of the University of Toronto was Rector of the church of St Paul in the City and diocese of Toronto from 1880. Like his father he was educated initially at the University of Toronto where he gained a BA in 1889. He went on to study Theology at Yale University in Conneticut 1889-1891 before coming to England in 1892 to study at the Missionary College Ridley Hall at Cambridge. Here he would have first come into contact with the Moule family as Handley Carr Glyn Moule was principal of the college from (1881-1899). As a result Thomas was ordained a deacon in 1893 at Manchester and a priest on 9th June 1895 at Southwell Minster. He served his curacy at the Church of St Bride at Stretford Lancashire (1893-1894) and St Andrews at Nottingham (1894-1896) before at the age of 31 being made Vicar of St Peters at Ketteringham in Norfolk (1899-1905). In 1906 he went to Canada, presumably to visit relatives, returning from Quebec on the 'Empress of Britain' arriving at Liverpool on 26th Oct 1906 to become the Curate of the church of St Ann with St Jude at Nottingham where he remained until 1910.
He was then appointed as a missionary priest for the diocese of Caledonia, and in 1912 he became the first resident Rector of St Andrews Anglican Church in the Saanich Peninsula at Sidney in British Colombia, a post he retained until 1919.
During his tensure at St Andrews in 1914 he returned to England to marry. He was accompanied by his sister Margaret Des BARRES, boarding the ship 'Scandinavian' at Montreal in Quebec, which arrived at Glasgow in Scotland on 21st June 1914. A month later they have made their way to Norfolk where Thomas can be seen in the above picture at his wedding on 23rd of July -- just 5 days before the outbreak of World War I. Little could this happy gathering have foreseen the horror which would befall many of them over the next four years. As far as I can tell this must have been an arranged marriage and his sister Margaret appears to have accompanied him to be a companion to Mary for the return journey. At his wedding Thomas was 47, his sister 46, and Mary 37 years old.
At the end of the war Thomas and Mary returned to England via New York taking the ship 'Saxonia' of the Cunard Line and landing at Plymouth on 16th June 1919.
Vicar of Ch Ch Bengeo 1920-1927; Rector of Sacombe Dio St Alb from 1927. resident Sarcombe Rectory Ware. Thomas died on 25th October 1948 at Rose Cottage Old Costesset in Norfolk. Probate was granted to his widow Mary on 22nd Feb 1949 when he left an estate valued at £17.765 3s 6d. Mary also died at Rose Cottage on 19th Feb 1952 probate being granted to Mary Alicia Blyth her neice her effects amounting to £21,635. 4s 4d.
© Picture left by John Salmon
Licenced for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence
In 1868 Yaxley was in Huntingdonshire but it is actually situated quite close to Peterborough in present day Cambridgeshire. Frederick John MOULE was appointed Vicar of St Peters abt Oct 1868 but formally took up residence with his family in January 1869.
As indicated above their last child Mary Helen Barbara Moule was born here, and Frederick served for 23 years as Vicar until 1891 when the Lord Chancellor appointed him to the Rectory of St Laurence in Norwich where he remained until just before his death.