| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Walter Noddle was born in Burton Agnes the 9 Dec 1895 and baptised in the parish church on 16 Jan 1896. Walter was the son of Richard Noddle and Emma (nee Ashby). Richard was a farm labourer. Walter was the youngest of six children and having attended Burton Agnes Primary School he is recorded in the 1911 census as a gardener. The Beverley Guardian of 20 Jan 1917 noted that Walter had worked at the East Ridin Asylum prior to enlistment in the army but staff log books from 1911 to 1917 indicate that this was not the case though it was entirely possible that he had worked there in a different capacity.
The Beverley Guardian of 20 Jan 1917 stated Walter was serving in the Gordon Highlanders and also contained a photo of him in Highland uniform. However there is no record of Walter having served with them. There was a “Walter Noddle” in the Lincolnshire Regiment who enlisted on 9 Oct 1916, and was later transferred to the Labour Corps. He was discharged from the army due to sickness on 12 Mar 1918 and awarded the Silver Badge. The Yorkshire Post of 7 Mar 1918 contained a small advert from Walter seeking employment as a valet or butler. It says that he was a “discharged soldier”, “an abstainer”, with good references. It is reasonable to assume that the Lincolnshire Regiment soldier was in fact Walter and that the local paper had made an error. Walter was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Walter went into service, he worked for many years at Ferniehurst near Shipley in West Yorkshire and later lived in Ripon in the mid 1930s and then Harrogate for the rest of his life. He is recorded as a butler but at an unknown institution. In Sep 1927 at Beighton, near Chesterfield, he married Ethel Lax, a coal miner’s daughter and also a domestic servant. It seems that they did not have any children. Walter died on 21 Feb 1978, Ethel died in 1976.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |