Decima Moore (1871-1964)

Decima Moore

Lilian Decima Moore was born in Brighton, Sussex, on December 11th, 1871. She was the tenth child (hence the origin of her name) of Edmund Henry Moore and his wife Elizabeth (Strachan). Her siblings included four sisters, all of whom became musical performers.

Decima was educated at the Boswell House College in Brighton and, proving particularly gifted musically, she won the Victoria Scholarship for singing at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music. Her obvious talent soon brought an offer of a position with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company which she at first declined in order to complete her musical education. The offer remained open however and, having completed her education, she joined the Company on a three year contract in November 1889. Her sister Jessie (Decima's elder by five years) was currently touring with the D'Oyly Carte 'B' Company whom she had joined in January of that year.

Decima's first professional stage role was that of 'Casilda' in the original production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera 'The Gondoliers'. The production opened at The Savoy on 7th December 1889, four days short of her eighteenth birthday. The production was a big success and Decima remained in the role of Casilda for its entire run at The Savoy which ended in June 1891. She then completed her contract with the D'Oyly Carte company playing the role of 'Polly' in the curtain raiser 'Captain Billy' at The Savoy. She was replaced in that role by her sister Jessie when she left the company on completion of her contract in November 1891.

On leaving The Savoy she joined the Company at the The Prince of Wales's Theatre for the production of 'Miss Decima'. The following two years saw her appearing in a number of other short run productions at London Theatres, including a brief return to The Savoy to play 'Bab' in 'Jane Annie'.

In 1894 she was appearing in a world tour production of the 'The Gaiety Girl' in Richmond, New York, when she married a fellow cast member, Cecil Ainslie Walker-Leigh. To please her mother, a church ceremony has held in London in 1896 and in 1898 she bore her husband a son. The marriage was not ultimately a success however and was dissolved in 1902, her husband's adultery and cruelty being cited as grounds for the divorce.

Appearing again on the London stage she returned to The Savoy for the third and final time appearing as 'Scent of Lillies' in The Rose of Persia from April to June of 1900. She continued to find regular work in London theatres up to the time of her second marriage, to Major (later Brigadier General) F.G. Guggisberg in August 1905.

Her new husband was an engineer who had been seconded to the Colonial Service and was serving as assistant director to the Gold Coast (Ghana) to conduct an extensive survey of the African nation. Decima accompanied her new husband on his return to West Africa and a few years later the couple published a book ("We Two in West Africa") recounting their adventures on that wild continent.

That did not signal the end of her stage career however. On frequent return visits to England she would continue to grace the stage in London's West End and throughout the British Isles (as well as tours of America and Australia) until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. During that conflict she was instrumental in founding and running a military forces leave club in Paris, a service for which she would be awarded a C.B.E (Commander of the British Empire) in 1918.

In 1919 her husband was appointed Governor of the Gold Coast and Decima herself served her country in an official capacity as Honorary Exhibition Commisioner for the Gold Coast at the British Empire Exhibition held between 1923 and 1926.

Decima was widowed by the death of her husband in April 1930 but would go on to live a full and active life until her own passing in Kensington, London on 18th February 1964. Four years earlier, in 1960, as the last surviving original player of a Gilbert and Sullivan role she had been elected vice-president of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. Her remains were laid to rest in Golders Green Crematorium, London.

Movie Credits (source www.imdb.com)
1932 - Nine till Six