MOORE, Charlie

Charlie Moore was a fine forward who came from VFA club Albert Park.

He was a splendid mark and place kick, and headed Essendon's goalkickers in 1898 with 20 goals even though he missed five games late in the year. His four goals in a huge win over St Kilda in Round 4 was the most by an Essendon player that year. Moore was full-forward in the side that lost the 1898 Grand Final to Fitzroy.

Moore was involved in a controversial incident in a game against Geelong in 1899 when he marked the ball but was knocked down by a Geelong player. As he got up from the ground Moore was struck behind the ear by Geelong player McShane. Moore swung around to hit his attacker but in doing so struck the umpire on the mouth. He escaped any penalty for this indiscretion.

Moore left Essendon at the end of the 1899 season and enlisted in the Imperial Military Forces in the Fourth Victoria (Colonial) Imperial Bushmen's Contingent to serve in the Boer War in South Africa. He died of wounds received at Quaggashoek.

The Official Records of the Military Contingents to the War in South Africa (by May and Allen, 2002) noted that: On 12 May 1901, he was part of a reconnaissance squad patrolling in the location of the Toorberg Mountain above the Doornbosch Farm when they came across and engaged a group of Boers. In the ensuing battle, Moore's horse was shot out from underneath him, and he took cover behind the body of the fallen horse. He was then seriously wounded when a Boer bullet hit him in the waist, having passed through the body of the dead horse. Moore eventually killed his Boer opponent after eight shots, and had struggled back to a ridge and was crawling along it on his hands and knees when his mates found him. They took the gravely wounded Moore to the nearby Kwaggashoek Farmhouse. He died of his wounds that night; a contemporary South Melbourne newspaper claimed that Moore "was the first man of the Imperial Contingent to die of gunshot wounds".

He was the first VFL/AFL footballer to be killed in action. Ironically, the only other footballer to die in the Boer War was Stanley Reid, who played for Fitzroy against Essendon in the 1898 Grand Final, meaning the two players who died in that conflict had been opponents in a football game just a few years earlier.

In 1901, as a mark of the Club's esteem, his mother, Mrs Elizabeth Moore, was presented with a framed and inscribed life-size photograph of her son. Mrs Moore was the aunt of South Melbourne champion, Roy Cazaly.

A drinking fountain was built by public subscription in the St Vincent Gardens in Albert Park to honour him. His mother and sisters lived in St Vincent Place.

His father, George Moore, worked as a government official in Fiji, eventually becoming the Commissioner of Lands, Works, and Water Supply, and the Crown Surveyor. Because of his father's service in Fiji, Charlie became the first Fijian-born VFL/AFL player.

Charlie Moore died on 12th May, 1901. He was originally buried near to where he died; his body was later exhumed and he is now buried in the Dutch Reformed Church cemetery, Somerset East, Eastern Cape, South Africa.