John Moore

[close] John Moore FRSE (1729 - 1802) was a Scottish physician and travel author. He also edited the works of Tobias Smollett.

He was the son of Rev Charles Moore of Rowallan (d,1735) and his wife, Marion Anderson. The family moved to Glasgow in his youth and he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr. John Gordon in Glasgow 1745 to 1747.

After taking a medical degree at Glasgow, Moore served as a Surgeon's Mate with the army in Flanders during the Seven Years' War, then moved to London to continue his studies, and eventually to Paris, where became surgeon to the household of the British ambassador.

In 1751 he returned to Glasgow to rejoin Dr. Gordon who was by then practising with Dr. Thomas Hamilton. From 1769 to 1778 he accompanied the Duke of Hamilton (who was related to Thomas) on a Grand Tour of Europe. On his return he took up residence in London. In 1784 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In 1792 he accompanied Lord Lauderdale to Paris, and witnessed some of the principal events of the French Revolution. His Journal during a Residence in France (1793) is the careful record of an eye-witness, and is frequently referred to by Thomas Carlyle.

Moore died in Richmond in Surrey.