Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet - Medical and Writing Career

Medical and Writing Career

After clinical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital, he qualified as a doctor in 1872. He obtained his MD in 1876, with his thesis, The Causes and Treatment of Rickets. He spent his entire career at St Bartholomew's, serving as warden of the college from 1873 to 1891, and in the roles of lecturer in anatomy, pathology, and medicine, and physician to the hospital in 1902. Moore maintained a frequent correspondence with many of his academic friends, broadening his knowledge to ancient Irish texts through his friendship with Standish Hayes O'Grady, and learnt palaeography from Henry Bradshaw. Moore became a prolific author, producing a new edition of Essays in Natural History, and translations from the Book of Leinster in 1881 and a translation from the German of Concise Irish Grammar in 1882. He contributed 459 lives to the Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen, and through his association with Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, developed a keen interest in military history. One of his greatest works, written in two volumes over a period of 30 years, was History of St Bartholomew's Hospital (1918). The history of the hospital was also the subject of the Rede Lecture he gave in 1914: St Bartholomew's Hospital in peace and war.

Through his mother Moore met Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, who in turn introduced him to artists and literary figures including Hercules Brabazon Brabazon, William De Morgan, the Rossettis Dante Gabriel, Christina, William Michael and Maria Francesca, Helen and William Allingham, George Eliot, and Mme Belloc and her children, Hilaire and Marie. Moore became involved with Bodichon's niece, Amy Leigh Smith, and proposed to her in 1876. Her parents objected at first, but eventually they were married on 30 March 1880 by Whitwell Elwin.

Moore was elected to the Royal College of Physicians in 1877 and became an active member, serving as president between 1918 and 1922 and representing the college on the General Medical Council for 21 years. He was a trustee of the British Museum and was created a baronet in 1919. His old college, St Catharine's, made him an honorary fellow in 1909. He retired from St Bartholomew's in 1911 and was appointed consulting physician to the hospital, emeritus lecturer in medicine, and hospital governor. He became secretary of The Literary Society, and librarian of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1899 until 1918. He was Harveian librarian at the Royal College of Physician, the 1901 Harveian orator, and was elected senior censor in 1908. He combined his medical studies and numerous lectureships with his study and reproduction of ancient manuscripts.