James Leith Moody

James Leith Moody (1816–1896) was a British clergyman who served as Chaplain to the Royal Navy in China; and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea. He was the brother of Major-General Richard Clement Moody, who was the contemporaneous first British Governor of the Falkland Islands.

Family
James Leith Moody was born at St. Ann's Garrison, Barbados, on 25 June 1816, and was named after Sir James Leith, to whom his father had served as aide-de-camp during the Napoleonic Wars. He was the fifth of ten children of Colonel Thomas Moody, Kt., and of Martha Clement (1784 - 1868), who was the daughter of the Dutch landowner Richard Clement (1754 - 1829).

James Leith Moody's siblings included Major-General Richard Clement Moody (1813 – 1887) (who was the contemporaneous first British Governor of the Falkland Islands, and the founder and first Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia); and Colonel Hampden Clement Blamire Moody CB (1821 – 1869) (who was Commander of the Royal Engineers in China during the Second Opium War and during the Taiping Rebellion).

His paternal grandmother was Barbara Blamire (1740 – 1806) who was a cousin of William Blamire MP High Sheriff of Cumberland and of the poet Susanna Blamire.

Career
James Leith was educated at Tonbridge School and at St. Mary Hall, Oxford (BA, 1840; MA, 1863). He was ordained as a priest, by John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, in 1841.

Leith served as chaplain to the Royal Navy in China; and to the British Army in the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, and Crimea.

Leith arrived in the Falkland Islands in October 1845, subsequent to which he was found to be 'querulous and eccentric', by his brother Richard Clement Moody, the Governor of the Falkland Islands; and also by his brother's successor as Governor George Rennie. James left the Falkland Islands in 1854.

Leith was Assistant Chaplain to the British Armed Forces at Aldershot in 1859. He on 15 October 1863 married, at Winchester, Mary Willan, who was the daughter of The Rev. Willan, by whom he had 5 children. He during 1865 lived at Walmer in Kent. He was Rector of Virginstow, at Launceston, Cornwall, from 1876 to 1879. He was Vicar of St. John the Baptist, at Clay Hill, Enfield, from 1879 to 1885, after which he retired to Dulwich where he died in 1896. His wife Mary died on 28 July 1930 at the age of 99 years.

He is commemorated on a 1994 stamp of the 'Foundation of Stanley Series' that was issued in the Falkland Islands.