Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet

Sir Norman Moore, 1st Baronet FRCP (8 January 1847 – 30 November 1922) was a British doctor and historian of medicine.

Moore was born in Higher Broughton, Salford, Lancashire, in 1847. He was the only child of abolitionist and social reformer Rebecca Moore, née Fisher, of Limerick and the noted Irish political economist Robert Ross Rowan Moore. The couple had been estranged since before Norman's birth, and he was raised by Rebecca through the support of her circle of Liberal nonconformist friends at Manchester. He studied initially at Chorlton High School, but left at the age of 14 to work in a cotton mill. He studied at Owens College from 1862 until 1865, and then read natural sciences at St Catharine's College, Cambridge University, from 1865 to 1868, graduating in 1869. During his time in Cambridge he met and became friends with Francis Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin, and the Reverend Whitwell Elwin. During his childhood in Manchester he had developed a passion for walking, and had visited Ireland on a walking tour, cementing his affinity for the country's history, people and culture. In 1863 he had visited the natural history collection at Walton Hall, Wakefield, befriending the author and explorer Charles Waterton.

Moore's friendship with Elwin, a former editor of the Quarterly Review, brought him into contact with important literary figures, including the publishers John Murray, father and son, author and critic Leslie Stephen, and Shakespearian scholar William James Craig. Moore's interest in natural history was influenced by his acquaintances with Alfred Newton, Richard Owen, and Charles Darwin. The recipient of an eight-year residential scholarship at St Catharine's, Moore was invited by university's anatomy professor George Murray Humphry, to assist in the establishment of the school of science at Cambridge. Moore however ran foul of St Catharine's master, the Reverend Charles Kirkby Robinson, during a minor scuffle in hall. Robinson rusticated Moore, leading to Moore's friend Elwin waging a pamphlet war on his behalf. Though Moore was allowed to sit his exams, he lost his scholarship, and in 1869 he enrolled at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, to study comparative anatomy.

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