Biography

The following is a verbatim extract from the booklet published in 1960 to mark the centenary of Waikouaiti Public School:

"Mr. Samuel Moore was the third teacher. He was born in 1837 in County Down and finished his education at Queen’s College, Belfast, where he graduated, and completed the course for the Presbyterian ministry. After spending a year or two in France and Switzerland he went to Melbourne, and later to Tasmania, with a view to teaching. There he conducted a private school at Oatlands. While there he married the eldest granddaughter of his friend the Rev. Dr. Nicolson, founder of Chalmers Church in Hobart. A year later he came to New Zealand and took service with the Otago Education Board, his first appointment being to the Beaumont School. In 1878 he was appointed headmaster of the growing Waikouaiti School and remained in that position until his death in 1898.

"Mr. Moore was a man of high intellectual attainments. Rarely indeed, in his time did a country school possess a headmaster of such advanced education and this he used to the benefit of his scholars. He taught French, German, Latin and Greek as well as mathematics. From the foundation thus laid, some of his scholars went on to become prominent in medicine, law, the church, education and banking.

"The parents were very grateful to Mr. Moore and many regretted that when District High Schools were established Mr. Moore was advised by the Education Board that he should cease his secondary school work.

"Mr. Moore was the first occupant of the present schoolhouse, which was built in 1880. The bare hillside in front of it he transformed into a beautiful garden of ornamental trees and shrubs."

Samuel Moore and his wife Marianne had three children: Walter, Reginald, and Mabel. Both of the sons became doctors.

— Other burials recorded at the same site:
Marianne MOORE d. 1928.