Moore was born at Birmingham on 30 March 1790, studied under Richard Mills in that city, but after some employment as a designer for commercial purposes, he turned his hand to portrait-painting.
The deleterious ingredients used in the last method brought on an illness, and hastened his death, which took place at York on 9 October 1851.
Moore was twice married: first, on 12 March 1812, to Martha Jackson of Birmingham; secondly, in 1828, at Gainsborough, to Sarah, daughter of Joseph Collingham of Newark.
Edwin Moore (1813–1893), painter, the eldest son by his first wife, was born on 29 Jan. 1813 at Birmingham.
Moore was best known by his work in watercolour, and especially by his portraits of children and landscape views in or near Rome and Florence.