[1] The Jones family emigrated to New Zealand around 1885, settling in Auckland, where Sarah Ann found work at a girls' school on Wellesley Street, in Remuera.

[1] Moore-Jones, still in England, was 46 years old at the time of the outbreak of the First World War and decided to enlist in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF).

[1] To his disappointment, as he had hoped to serve in the infantry, Moore-Jones was posted to the New Zealand Engineers, with the rank of sapper (equivalent to private).

The sappers were immediately put to work building emplacements for howitzers and machine-guns, digging support trenches upon on the plateau where Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Plugge established his headquarters, and constructing tracks on Walker's Ridge.

[7] Coming to the attention of senior commanders due to his artistic skills, Moore-Jones was seconded to the ANZAC Printing Section, which was attached to Lieutenant-General William Birdwood's headquarters.

Declining an offer of a commission, for he preferred to remain in the ranks, he made several topographical sketches of the terrain that was used for planning of offensive operations.

[1] The dangers of his work were well understood, and Birdwood later commented: "Many of Moore-Jones' pictures were, I know, done while shells were whistling overhead, and they portray very faithfully the country in which we were operating..."[8] In October 1915, he was dispatched to Cairo to supervise the reproduction by the Survey Department of some of his sketches.

These were exhibited in England in April 1916[1] and he also had an audience at Buckingham Palace with King George V.[10] His work was well received by the public and press.

As a result of the publicity of his showings in England, there was considerable interest in his Gallipoli work and in November 1916, he gave the first of what proved to be several exhibitions, accompanied by a lecture, of his paintings.

[14] Moore-Jones himself did not profit from the tour and short of finance, he, on more than one occasion in 1917, offered to sell his war paintings to the New Zealand Government.

However, the economic situation of the time, together with Prime Minister William Massey's view that no one should profit from the war, meant that Moore-Jones' offers were declined.

This version is now at the Australian War Memorial,[19] while others hang at the Aigantighe Art Gallery in Timaru and the Christchurch Officers Club.

[20] The medical orderly was originally believed, including by Moore-Jones, to be the Australian John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who served in the early stages of the Gallipoli Campaign before being killed by a sniper and who was well known for his use of donkeys to transport wounded soldiers from the front lines.

However, by 1937 it became known that the man the subject of the photograph on which the painting was based on was not Simpson but Richard Alexander Henderson, a stretcher-bearer in the New Zealand Medical Corps.

The funeral service was attended by prominent citizens of the city along with Lieutenant Reginald Judson, a Victoria Cross recipient of the war, who represented the New Zealand Military Forces.

[23] Moore-Jones' artwork is exhibited at several major institutions in both New Zealand and Australia, including the Australian War Memorial, Auckland City Art Gallery, and the Waikato Museum.

Sculpted by the official artist of the New Zealand Defence Force, Matt Gauldie, the statue stands 5 metres (16 ft 5 in) high and is mounted on a large block of stone donated by the Turkish Government and sourced from Gallipoli.