Cecil Noble

Lance Corporal Cecil Reginald Noble VC (4 June 1891 − 13 March 1915) was a British Army soldier and a posthumous English recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was killed at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle during the First World War.

Noble was born in Bournemouth, then part of Hampshire, the son of Frederick Noble, a decorator, and his wife Hannah nee Smith. The family lived in Capstone Road and he attended St Clement's Elementary School, and followed his father in working as a decorator. He disliked his given forename and was known by friends and family as Tommy.

He enlisted in the British Army Rifle Brigade in 1910. When he was 23 years old, and an Acting Corporal in the 2nd Battalion, The Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own), on the Western Front the following deed took place for which he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

On 12 March 1915 at Neuve Chapelle, France, when the advance of the battalion was impeded by wire entanglements and by very severe machine-gun fire, Corporal Noble and another man (Harry Daniels) voluntarily rushed in front and succeeded in cutting the wires. They were both wounded, and Corporal Noble later died of his injuries. Daniels survived to receive his Victoria Cross and later rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

Noble was buried at Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery, two miles south of Saint-Omer, France, in plot I, row A, grave 57.

He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for most conspicuous bravery on 29 April 1915. Source: Military records.

Blue Plaque
Noble is commemorated by a Blue Plaque in Capstone Road, Bournemouth, unveiled on 2nd October 1995. The Blue Plaque gives Noble's rank as Corporal, in line with the VC citation published in the London Gazette supplement of April 1915, but differing from the rank of Lance-Corporal, as used on his Commonwealth War Grave headstone. The plaque was erected at the same time as one to Frederick Charles Riggs also in Capstone Road, as it was considered of interest that both Noble and Riggs had connections to the same Bournemouth street. Noble and Riggs are also commemorated on WWI centenary paving slabs by Bournemouth's War Memorial in the Central Pleasure Gardens, and by neighbouring street names in the Wallisdown area of Bournemouth.