Lieutenant Colonel R.R. Moodie
205th (Hamilton Tigers) Battalion

He is suffering from neurasthenia with insomnia, loss of appetite, general debility, severe headaches, nervous chills and constant pain in temporal region and back of neck. Mental concentration is impossible, and he is easily worried over trifles.

(Proceedings of Medical Board, 3 Sept 1916)

Born in Hamilton, Ontario on 6 August 1884, Robert Roy Moodie was a knitting manufacturer, prominent sportsman and president of the city’s Tiger Football club. A member of the 91st militia and the Canadian Field Artillery, Moodie first joined Lieutenant Colonel Walter Stewart’s 86th Machine Gun Battalion at the rank of major in October 1915. By early 1916, he had received authorization to raise a sportsmen’s battalion from Hamilton, the 205th Tigers, which took its nickname from the city’s sports team.

This is something new in Canada, and means that all men joining the 205th will be trained as machine gunners and the battalion will supply drafts to units already at the front. The same system has been adopted in Britain. Men with more than ordinary intelligence for machinery, make the most successful machine gunners, and the Tiger Battalion has been careful to attest only good men.

The 205th entered a number of military sport leagues including lacrosse, rugby and football. In late October 1916, the Tigers football club beat the 180th Sportsmen to face the 207th Ottawa Battalion, who had defeated Queen’s University. In the finals, the 207th badly outclassed the 205th to take the championship.

In December 1916, the 205th was absorbed into the Canadian Machine Gun Corps and broken up for reinforcements. Moodie subsequently resigned due to ill health.

Moodie died on Remembrance Day 1974.