Dr. David Moore

David Moore (1808, Dundee – 1879, Dublin)

David Moore was born in Dundee, Scotland. After serving his gardening aprenticeship in Scotland, he moved to Ireland in 1828. He worked as assistant to James Mackay at Trinity College Botanic Gardens at Ballsbridge. Following that he was appointed as botanist to the Ordnance Survey spending five years listing and collecting the native plants of Antrim and Londonderry. In 1838 he became curator of the National Botanic Gardens, succeeding Ninain Nivan. He remained there until his death in 1879. During his tenure at Glasnevin orchids were grown from seed for the first time.
David Moore was internationally respected as a botanist and received an honourary doctorate from the University of Zurich for his work in Crytogamic (Spore plants) botany. In the 1860s he collaborated with A.G.More of the Dublin Museum to publish, in 1866, Cybele Hibernica, long the standard work on the distribution of the plants native to Ireland.

The original botanic gardens were laid out by their first director, Dr Walter Wade, Professor of Botany to the Dublin Society, with the help of the first superintendent, John Underwood. After Wade's death in 1825 the gardens went into a period of decline but were resurrected and redesigned by the new director Ninian Nivan between 1834 and 1838, with further modifications carried out by his successors Dr David Moore (1838-79), Sir Frederick Moore (1879-1922), J. W. Besant (1922 44) and Dr T. J. Walsh (1944-68).