Lieutenant General Sir John Moore (

Lieutenant General Sir John Moore (1761 to 1809) – The Founding Father of The Rifles


Sir John Moore

John Moore was commissioned into 51st Foot (later the KOYLI) in March 1776, at the age of 14½ and by 1790 he was commanding the Regiment.In 1803, the 43rd and 52nd (Ox and Bucks) were chosen to form the first Corps of Light Infantry and joined with the 95th Rifles (later the Rifle Brigade) to constitute the Light Brigade at Shorncliffe in Kent under the command of Sir John Moore.

At Shorncliffe Sir John Moore generated a succession of advanced ideas later to be adopted as ideals by the rest of the Army: open-order tactics and mobility in place of rigid drills and ponderous movement, camouflage and concealment in place of serried ranks of red coats, individual marksmanship in place of massed musket fire, and intelligence and self-reliance in place of blind obedience instilled by the fear of brutal punishment.

Moorehas been described as ‘the very best trainer of troops thatEnglandhas ever possessed.’ His insistence on absolute professionalism and mutual respect between officers and men (new concepts at the time) was to create a formation whose contribution was crucial toWellington’s victories in thePeninsulaand whose traditions survive in The Rifles of today.

In October 1808, Sir John Moore was given command of the British Forces in the Peninsular and charged with liberatingSpain. When threatened by a huge French army commanded by Napoleon, and mindful that he commanded Britain’s only effective continental army, he conducted a strategic retreat to the port of Corunna (in Portugal) where, on 16 January 1809, he turned and repulsed the French vanguard commanded by the French Marshal Soult. Sir John Moore was killed during the action, but the successful outcome of the battle enabled the Royal Navy to embark the army unhindered.

Long after the Peninsula War had ended, to be known as having been ‘one of Sir John Moore’s men’ carried with it a unique degree of prestige. Napoleon said of Sir John Moore: “His firmness and talent alone saved the British Army [inSpain] from destruction.”