  Moore grew up in South London (his eldest brother was the poet T. Sturge Moore who worked as an illustrator with W. B. Yeats). In 1892 he went to Trinity College Cambridge to study Classics. He soon made the acquaintance there of Bertrand Russell who was two years ahead of him and of J. M. E. McTaggart who was then a charismatic young Philosophy Fellow of Trinity College. Under their encouragement Moore decided to add the study of Philosophy to his study of Classics, and he graduated in 1896 with a First Class degree in the subject. At this point he turned his energies towards attempting to follow in the footsteps of McTaggart and Russell by winning a ‘Prize’ Fellowship at Trinity College which would enable him to continue the study of philosophy there. In 1898 he was successful and over the next six years he matured as a dynamic young philosopher, actually leading Russell away from the idealist philosophy of McTaggart and others which was then dominant in Britain.