Member of the New Zealand Alpine Club:

"The small band of pioneers who saw the renaissance of the Club in the twenties has all but faded away and the death of George Moir breaks another link in a long and constant connection of more than fifty years. He joined the Club in 1925 and ended with the second longest extant membership, junior only to Sir Ronald Algie who by a singular coincidence died on the same day.

George was born in North Otago on 20 December 1897 and was educated in Dunedin, first at Wakari School then at Otago Boys' High School where he gained a University National Scholarship and enrolled at Otago University in 1917. His studies were interrupted by service overseas with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1918 and 1919 but on demobilisation he resumed to graduate B.Sc. in 1921 with the highest marks in New Zealand in chemistry. He obtained his M.Sc. degree with first class honours in chemistry in 1922 and was Otago University's Smeaton Research Scholar in 1923.

It was while he was a student at university that he made his first acquaintance with the mountains.

Practically the whole of his professional life was spent in the service of the dairy industry. After graduation he was for three years on the staff of King Edward Technical College, Dunedin and in 1927 he was awarded the Pedlar Research Scholarship to study at Reading University, England where he researched the biochemistry of milk and dairy products and gained his Ph.D. degree in 1930. He returned to an appointment with the Department of Agriculture and in the course of his thirty one years as Dairy Chemist he built up the Wallaceville Dairy Laboratory to a most effective and internationally recognised unit.

On his retirement in 1962 he moved first to New Plymouth and then to Christchurch wherre he kept up his interest in Club affairs particularly in the success of the guide book. He was made a Life Member in 1970 in recognition of his long association with climbing and the CLub and not least for his unselfish devotion to its ideals and welfare. With his death on 23 July 1978 the Club has lost another of its personalities but so long as Moirs Guide Book is read he will be remembered. It was an apt comment he once made that while others leave footprints in the sands, he hoped that he may have left some in the snow."

(from the New Zealand Alpine Journal, 1979) AWMM