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class="clearFix" id="pageContent"> <div id="pageColumnMain"> <h2>Joseph Sheridan Moore (1828–1891)</h2> <p class="authorName">by <a href="/biographies/author/?author=1469">Frances Devlin Glass</a></p> <div class="publish-notice publish-notice--major-project" style="background-color:#dee9f2;color:#153449;"> <p>This article was published:</p> <ul> <li> in the <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biographies/project/?name=australian-dictionary-biography-volume-5" style="color:#905d27;"> <span class="publish-notice__project-name">Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5</span> </a> , 1974 </li> <li>online in 2006</li> </ul> </div> <div class="biographyContent textContent" id="6831">  <div class="print"> <div class="mainPic"><a href="/uploads/obituaries/4234/hahn.jpg" title="Joseph Moore, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888"><img src="/uploads/obituaries/4234/thumbs/hahn_246x550.jpg" alt="Joseph Moore, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888" width='246' height='349' /></a></div> <p class="caption"><span class="captionName">Joseph Moore</span>, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888</p><p class="credit">photo supplied by family</p></div> <p>Joseph Sheridan Moore (1828-1891), teacher, publicist and man of letters, was born in Grafton Street, Dublin, son of Luke Moore, solicitor, and his wife Bride Marion, née Sheridan. Educated by the Jesuits at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, he migrated to Sydney in 1847, became a Benedictine monk and headmaster of Lyndhurst College, Glebe. Always a transplanted Irishman, he had many disagreements and dissatisfactions with <a title="Polding, John Bede (1794 - 1877)" href="polding-john-bede-2557">Archbishop Polding</a> and <a title="Gregory, Henry Gregory (1813 - 1877)" href="gregory-henry-gregory-2122">Abbot Gregory</a>. He left Lyndhurst on 1 April 1856 and on 3 October 1857 married Flora Macdonald Harris (b.1832) at the Ashfield district registry. Although he did not rejoin the Church until 1872 he had been editor of the Catholic <em>Freeman's Journal</em> in 1856-57.</p> <p>Moore was well known in literary circles, specially in the coterie centred around <a title="Stenhouse, Nicol Drysdale (1806 - 1873)" href="stenhouse-nicol-drysdale-4638">N. D. Stenhouse</a> and included <a title="Michael, James Lionel (1824 - 1868)" href="michael-james-lionel-4193">J. L. Michael</a>, <a title="Woolley, John (1816 - 1866)" href="woolley-john-4885">Professor Woolley</a>, <a title="Deniehy, Daniel Henry (1828 - 1865)" href="deniehy-daniel-henry-3393">D. Deniehy</a>, <a title="Dalley, William Bede (1831 - 1888)" href="dalley-william-bede-3356">W. B. Dalley</a> and <a title="Thomas Henry Kendall (1839-1882)" href="kendall-thomas-henry-3941">Henry Kendall</a>. Moore was esteemed by some but condemned as a charlatan by the native-born members who distrusted him and <a title="Fowler, Francis Edmund Town (1833 - 1863)" href="fowler-francis-edmund-town-frank-3562">F. E. T. Fowler</a> because of their snobbish <em>emigré</em> valuation of literature propounded in the <em>Month</em>. Moore criticized the poetry of <a title="Parkes, Sir Henry (1815 - 1896)" href="parkes-henry-4366">Henry Parkes</a> and <a title="Harpur, Charles (1813 - 1868)" href="harpur-charles-2158">Charles Harpur</a> not only for its inferior literary quality but also for its self-conscious nationalism.</p> <p>Moore's literary output supplemented his teaching and coaching of aspirants for university honours in his own City College and in Randwick College and University Hall. He specialized in classics but also taught a liberal-progressive syllabus ranging from modern languages to geography and science. His writings were prolific: his <em>Spring Life Lyrics</em> (1864) was an anthology of light Romantic verse on conventional themes, and his essays in <em>The Ethics of the Irish Under the Pentarchy</em> (1872) aimed to recreate Irish prehistory and customs for Irish-Australians; his strange combination of the Romantic excesses of contemporary German and Irish writers sometimes shows a delicate touch and feeling that is more than mere sentiment. In the 1870s and 1880s he wrote many pamphlets and articles for such different publications as <a title="Vaughan, Roger William Bede (1834 - 1883)" href="vaughan-roger-william-bede-4773">Archbishop Vaughan</a>'s <em>Express</em> and the <em>Bulletin</em>. In 1873 he had been declared bankrupt with debts of over £1000; his estate was not released until May 1874.</p> <p>Claiming to be an orator, Moore lectured at Mechanics' Schools of Arts and other institutions with a high moral sense of his listeners' need for intellectual, literary and social improvement. On 12 July 1865 in one of his most constructive lectures, published as <em>University Reform, Its Urgency & Reasonableness</em>, he argued against exclusiveness in the local university and advocated introduction of evening and 'extern' students, liberalizing of courses to include a modern language and creating medical, civil engineering and architecture schools. In demand as a speaker, his bumptious posings often irritated his audiences, although his handbook on <em>Elocution</em> (1855), prepared for his students at Lyndhurst College, showed that his theories on oratory were clear, moderate and restrained.</p> <p>Moore died at his home in Elizabeth Street, Redfern, on 17 October 1891 and was buried in the Catholic section of Waverley cemetery. His wife, who survived him with two sons and two daughters, was a prominent concert and oratorio singer in 1852-82; on her death in 1910 she was vice-president of the Sydney Philharmonic Society.</p> </div> <div class="infoList"> <h3>Select Bibliography</h3> <ul> <li>J. R. Tyrrell, <em>Postscript</em> (Syd, 1957)</li><li>T. L. Suttor, <em>Hierarchy and Democracy in Australia, 1788-1870</em> (Melb, 1965)</li><li>M. Shanahan, <em>Out of Time, Out of Place</em> (Canberra, 1970)</li><li><em>Freeman's Journal</em> (Sydney), 14, 21, 28 Nov 1868, 10 Feb, 29 July 1871, 24 Nov 1891</li><li><em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>, 17 Nov 1891</li><li><em>Bulletin</em>, 24 Nov 1891</li><li><em>Town and Country Journal</em>, 24 Nov 1891</li><li>A. M. Williams, Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse: A Study of a Literary Patron in a Colonial Milieu (M.A. thesis, University of Sydney, 1963)</li><li>Moore, Kendall and Stenhouse letters (State Library of New South Wales).</li> </ul> </div> <div class="infoList"> <h3>Related Entries in NCB Sites</h3> <ul> <li><a href="https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/gardiner-martin-33088/text41258">Gardiner, Martin</a> (colleague)<span class="linkicon"><a href="https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/gardiner-martin-33088/text41258"><img src="/images/site/pa/siteIcon.jpg" alt="go to People Australia entry" title="go to People Australia entry"/></a></span></li> <li><a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kendall-thomas-henry-3941">Kendall, Thomas Henry</a> (colleague)<span class="linkicon"><a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kendall-thomas-henry-3941"><img src="/images/site/adb/siteIcon.jpg" alt="go to ADB entry" title="go to ADB entry"/></a></span><span class="linkicon"><a href="https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/kendall-thomas-henry-3941"><img src="/images/site/oa/siteIcon.jpg" alt="go to Obituaries Australia entry" title="go to Obituaries Australia entry"/></a></span></li> <li><a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/deniehy-daniel-henry-3393">Deniehy, Daniel Henry</a> (acquaintance)<span class="linkicon"><a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/deniehy-daniel-henry-3393"><img src="/images/site/adb/siteIcon.jpg" alt="go to ADB entry" title="go to ADB entry"/></a></span></li> </ul> </div> <div class="citation"> <h3>Citation details</h3> <p>Frances Devlin Glass, 'Moore, Joseph Sheridan (1828–1891)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/moore-joseph-sheridan-4234/text6831, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 25 November 2024.</p> <p id="origPubDetails"><strong>This article was published in hardcopy in <em><strong>Australian Dictionary of Biography</strong></em>, Volume 5, (Melbourne University Press), 1974</strong></p> <p style="margin-top: 20px;">View the <a href="/frontpages/fp5.pdf" target="_blank">front pages</a> for Volume 5</p> </div> <div id="printFooter"> <p class="floatLeft">© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2024</p> </div> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function() { Shadowbox.init({ counterType: 'skip', continuous: true, overlayOpacity: 0.80 }); }); </script> <div id="pageSidebar"> <div class="mainPic"><a href="/uploads/obituaries/4234/hahn.jpg" title="Joseph Moore, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888" rel="shadowbox[obit01]"><img src="/uploads/obituaries/4234/thumbs/hahn_246x550.jpg" alt="Joseph Moore, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888" width='246' height='349' /></a></div> <p class="caption"><span class="captionName">Joseph Moore</span>, by American & Australasian Photographic Company, c.1888</p><p class="credit">photo supplied by family</p> <div class="lifeSummary"> <h3>Life Summary <span><a href ="/lifesummary/moore-joseph-sheridan-4234" target="_blank">[details]</a></span></h3> <h5>Birth</h5> <p> <a href="/biographies/birth/?bdate=1828">1828</a> <br /> <a href="/biographies/search/?query=birthLocation%3A%22Dublin%2C%20Dublin%2C%20Ireland%22">Dublin</a>, <a href="/biographies/search/?query=birthLocation%3A%22Dublin%2C%20Ireland%22">Dublin</a>, <a href="/biographies/search/?query=birthLocation%3A%22Ireland%22">Ireland</a> </p> <h5>Death</h5> <p> <a href="/biographies/death/?ddate=17101891">17 October</a>, <a href="/biographies/death/?ddate=1891">1891</a> (aged ~ 63) <br /> <a href="/biographies/search/?query=deathLocation%3A%22Redfern%2C%20Sydney%2C%20New%20South%20Wales%2C%20Australia%22">Redfern, Sydney</a>, <a href="/biographies/search/?query=deathLocation%3A%22New%20South%20Wales%2C%20Australia%22">New South Wales</a>, <a href="/biographies/search/?query=deathLocation%3A%22Australia%22">Australia</a> </p> <div class="life-summary__heading-container"> <h5 class="life-summary__heading--note">Cultural Heritage</h5> <button class="life-summary__note-button" title="View explanatory note" data-note-text-id="life-summary-cultural"> <img src="/images/down_arrow.png" class="life-summary__button-image"> </button> </div> <p class="life-summary__note-text" id="life-summary-cultural"> Includes subject's nationality; their parents' nationality; the countries in which they spent a significant part of their childhood, and their self-identity. </p><ul> <li> <a href="/biographies/search/?query=ethnicity%3A%22Irish%22">Irish</a> </li> </ul> <div class="life-summary__heading-container"> <h5 class="life-summary__heading--note">Religious Influence</h5> <button class="life-summary__note-button" title="View explanatory note" data-note-text-id="life-summary-religious"> <img src="/images/down_arrow.png" class="life-summary__button-image"> </button> </div> <p class="life-summary__note-text" id="life-summary-religious"> Includes the religion in which subjects were raised, have chosen themselves, attendance at religious schools and/or religious funeral rites; Atheism and Agnosticism have been included. </p><ul> <li> <a href="/biographies/search/?query=religion%3A%22Catholic%22">Catholic</a> </li> </ul> <h5> Occupation or Descriptor </h5> <ul> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=Catholic%20religious%20brother&rpp=200">Catholic religious brother</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=essayist&rpp=200">essayist</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=literary%20critic&rpp=200">literary critic</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=magazine%2Fjournal%20editor&rpp=200">magazine/journal editor</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=pamphleteer&rpp=200">pamphleteer</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=poet&rpp=200">poet</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=public%20lecturer&rpp=200">public lecturer</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=school%20principal&rpp=200">school principal</a> </li> <li> <a href="/biographies/occupation/?occupation=schoolteacher&rpp=200">schoolteacher</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <footer> <div class="clearFix" id="footer"> <h3>Australian Dictionary of Biography</h3> <p>An initiative of the <a href="https://history.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/ncb">National Centre of Biography</a> at the <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/">Australian National University</a></p> <div class="clearFix"> <p class="floatLeft">© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2024</p> <p class="floatLeft cdp"><a href="/copyright/">Copyright</a> · <a href="/disclaimer/">Disclaimer</a> · <a href="/privacy/">Privacy Policy</a> · <a href="/contact-us/">Contact Us</a></p> </div> </div> </footer> </body> </html>