Sergeant Charles Noble

Sergeant Charles Noble, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He died in Belgium on 10th June 1917 of wounds received in action, aged 24. He was the son of John and Jessie Noble of Spittal and is buried in Lijssenhoek Military Cemetery, Flanders, Belgium. ( The C.W.G.C. site has his unit as 10th Battalion N.F. as does “Soldiers Died” so it is probable that he had been transferred from the 7th Battalion). Before the War he had worked in Berwick for the ” Berwickshire Advertiser ” and was a prominent member of Berwick Rangers football team. His brother Alexander also fell – see below. The photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the fallen of the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until February 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near the village of Wieltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby on 26th April 1915 the Division had fought its first action of the War only days after landing on the Continent.