A double success for Superintendent Moore

One Portsmouth policeman became a successful private detective in retirement

A short piece today, commemorating John George Moore of Portsmouth. John was a career policeman, and successful in his job, reaching the heights of inspector by 1901, and superintendent within a decade of that.

A view of Portsmouth around the time of John Moore’s birth

Born in the city in 1863, John married Sarah Archer, who was from Warwickshire, in 1885. The couple had five children - four girls and one boy. Sadly, their only son, Henry Edgar, died before his first birthday. This left John as a girl dad - bringing up Lydia, Alice, Florence and Nellie with his wife.

In 1919, John retired from the Portsmouth Police. September 1920 saw him place his first adverts in the Hampshire press, advertising his new career as a private inquiry agent. He had an office at 11 Prudential Buildings in Portsmouth, and (in common with many other private detectives) claimed to have agents working for him in many other towns, including London, Liverpool and Brighton. He worked as a private detective for over a decade, being commissioned to work on divorce cases and pub licensing ones.

There was a lot of suspicion about private detectives in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and so John stands out: the Portsmouth Evening News commended him in 1933 for having ‘crowned a distinguished police career with an equally successful activity as a private inquiry agent.’ John’s police skills were invaluable as a private detective, but he clearly also gained kudos for the success he had made out of his second career.

John Moore died in 1937, aged 74, leaving an estate of over £2000. His executors were his two sons-in-law.