Henry Joseph Moule /ˈmoʊl/ (1825–1904) was an English watercolour artist, and friend of Thomas Hardy. He was born at Gillingham, Dorset on 25 September 1825, the eldest of eight sons of Henry Moule, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, gaining a B.A. in 1848 and M.A. in 1853. He then spent some years as a private tutor, secretary and librarian, to the family of Lord Wriothesley Russell (son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford) and then the Earl Fitzwilliam at Wentworth Woodhouse. He spent the years 1862 - 1877 in Scotland, and then (after a brief sojourn in Ireland) returned to Dorset (where he had grown up). In 1883 he was appointed the first curator of the Dorset County Museum, a post he held until his death on 13 March 1904; he left several thousand paintings to the museu