Major-General Richard Clement Moody FICE FRGS RIBA (13 February 1813 – 31 March 1887) was a British Governor and Commander of the Royal Engineers.

[10] Richard Clement Moody was born, on 13 February 1813,[11] at St. Ann's Garrison, Barbados, into a High Church[12] merchant family, with a history of military service,[13] who included Jacobites who had fought Britain's Protestant monarchy, and who had in-common ancestry with George Washington the founder of the USA.

[40] When Moody arrived, on the Hebe,[40] at Port Louis on 16 January 1842,[16] the Falklands was 'almost in a state of anarchy', but he used his powers 'with great wisdom and moderation'[14][2] to develop the Islands' infrastructure.

He estimated that the population of sheep were 40,000 in 1842 and encouraged the Government to import quality stock from Britain to be crossed with the local breeds: this policy was implemented to considerable success and was adopted by future settlers.

[41] The botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, who arrived on the Islands with the expedition of Sir James Clark Ross, described Moody as 'a very active and intelligent young man, most anxious to improve the colony and gain every information [sic] respecting its products'.

[38] Moody's refusal to acquiesce to George Thomas Whitington's attempt to force him to travel in the brig Alarm provoked a feud between their families (the latter of which included John Bull Whitington in The Falkland Islands) that continued during Moody's tenure as Governor of the Falkland Islands and in the Colonial Magazine of November 1844.

[16] Shortly after Moody's arrival in 1842, when the Antarctic Expedition of Sir James Clark Ross sailed into Port Louis, Sir James Clark Ross advised Moody to choose for the capital city a site that was more easily accessible to sailing ships than Port Louis.

[16] Richard Clement established residences, Government offices, a barracks, a new road system, docks, a court of law, a gaol, a school, a church, a graveyard, and a police force.

[16] Moody repudiated the original European settlers of The Falkland Islands but commended his Royal Engineers: he wrote, our community... chiefly composed of men of the lowest class, formerly seamen in whale ships & sealers, foreigners and Spanish gauchos... the only persons opposed to such wretched material for the formation of a colony are the 5 or 6 gentlemen and the detachment of Royal Sappers and Miners.

[16] In 1845, animosity on the River Plate between the British and the French fleets and the Argentine Government of Juan Manuel de Rosas provoked Moody to request an artillery contingent from Britain and to use his Royal Engineers to train a militia from The Falkland Islands' population.

Moody's authority provoked antipathy in his subordinates, especially his inequable brother James Leith, the Chaplain to the British Force in the Islands.

[45] In 1845 Moody introduced tussock grass into Great Britain from The Falkland Islands for which he received the Gold Medal of the Royal Agricultural Society.

[16][14] He was Commanding Royal Engineer of Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1852 until 1854,[16][14] as which he directed the response to the burst reservoir at Holmfirth, Yorkshire, from on 5 February 1852, which destroyed life and property.

Whilst at Malta, his eldest son, Richard Stanley Hawks Moody, later a distinguished Colonel, was born, on 23 October 1854, at Strada Reale, Valletta.

[10] His plans so impressed Lord Panmure that he was invited to Windsor Castle to present them to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, both of whom were musicians and both of whom were delighted.

[2] When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Secretary of State for the Colonies, requested that War Office recommend a field officer who were 'a man of good judgement possessing a knowledge of mankind' to lead 150 (which was later increased to 172) Royal Engineers who had been selected for their 'superior discipline and intelligence'.

[16] Moody had hoped to begin immediately the foundation of a capital city, but on his arrival at Fort Langley, he learned of an insurrection at the settlement of Hill's Bar by a notorious outlaw, Ned McGowan, and some restive gold miners.

[16] Moody described the incident: The notorious Ned McGowan, of Californian celebrity at the head of a band of Yankee Rowdies defying the law!

He founded the new capital city, New Westminster,[16][14] at a site of dense forest of Douglas pine[14] that he selected for its strategic excellence, including the quality of its port.

[52] He, in his letter to his friend Arthur Blackwood of the Colonial Office, dated 1 February 1859, described the majestic beauty of the site:[53][4] "The entrance to the Frazer is very striking--Extending miles to the right & left are low marsh lands (apparently of very rich qualities) & yet fr the Background of Superb Mountains- Swiss in outline, dark in woods, grandly towering into the clouds there is a sublimity that deeply impresses you.

[...] My imagination converted the silent marshes into Cuyp-like pictures of horses and cattle lazily fattening in rich meadows in a glowing sunset.

[...] The water of the deep clear Frazer was of a glassy stillness, not a ripple before us, except when a fish rose to the surface or broods of wild ducks fluttered away".

[5] However, Lord Lytton, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, 'forgot the practicalities of paying for clearing and developing the site and the town' and the efforts of Moody's Engineers were continually impeded by insufficient funds, which, together with the continuous opposition of Governor Douglas, whom Sir Thomas Frederick Elliot (1808 - 1880) described as 'like any other fraud',[56] 'made it impossible for [Moody's] design to be fulfilled'.

[16] Throughout his tenure in British Columbia, Moody feuded with Sir James Douglas Governor of Vancouver Island, whose jurisdiction overlapped with his own.

[58][59] Sir Thomas Frederick Elliot (1808 - 1880) described Governor Douglas as 'like any other fraud',[56] whereas Moody had been selected by Lord Lytton for his qualities of the archetypal 'English gentleman and British Officer', and because his family was 'eminently respectable'.

Governor Douglas's mother was 'a half-breed' and 'an affront to Victorian society':[60] whereas Mary Moody was a member of the Hawks industrial dynasty and of the Boyd merchant banking family.

[63] Douglas repeatedly insulted the Royal Engineers by attempting to assume their command[64] and refusing to acknowledge their contribution to the nascent colony.

[7] Scott contends that the dissolution of the Columbia Detachment, and the consequent departure of Moody, 'doomed' the development of the settlement and the realisation of Lord Lytton's dream.

In 1984, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of New Westminster, a monument of Richard Clement Moody, at the entrance of the park, was unveiled by Mayor Tom Baker.

Mary Hawks's maternal uncles included Admiral Benedictus Marwood Kelly and industrialist Edward Fenwick Boyd.