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Private William Henry Campbell Moore

 

William Henry Campbell Moore was born on 20 April 1881 at 35 Drew Street, Belfast, one of fifteen children of clerk (also described as a merchant and a grocer) John Moore and his wife Annabella (née Edmonds).

Moore served for two years during the Boer War in Bethune's Light Horse and the Imperial Light Horse, and was awarded two service medals with five clasps. Following his discharge after the war he remained in South Africa, working in the gold mines.

In January 1915 he returned to the UK and on 25 February at Belfast, enlisted in the North Irish Horse (No.1455). Soon after, however, he fell ill. A medical report in April reported that:

Moore states that he worked in a Gold mine in South Africa ... until Aug. 1913 was then examined by Board of Doctors & discharged suffering from Miners Phthisis being allowed a compensation pension. He left Cape Town 7th Jany 1915. With the voyage home etc he felt so much better that he enlisted in N.I.H. but he had not joined a week before he found he had overestimated his abilities. I have kept him under observation & have examined him several times & am convinced that he is unfit for soldiering. He is constantly coughing & the slightest exertion leaves him breathless & weak. He has been doing nothing but hut orderly practically ever since he joined. I recommend that he be discharged.

Moore was discharged on 3 May 1915 (paragraph 392(iii)(c), King's Regulations), being 'not likely to become an efficient soldier, considered unfit for service within three months of enlistment'. His military character was recorded as 'very good'.

Moore was admitted to the Abbey Sanatorium at Whiteabbey. He died there, of pulmonary tuberculosis, on 17 September 1917.