Gunner Reginald John Noon
14088 Royal Marine Artillery
Reginald John Noon was born in 1896 in Blackwell, Derbyshire son of John Thomas Noon, a coal miner hewer born Langley Mill and his first wife Mary Elizabeth (nee Kenny) born Wollaton, Nottingham. In 1901 the family was living at Hucknall, Nottingham but by 1911 had moved to Wagstaff Lane, Jacksdale.
Reginald had an elder brother named Sidney Kenny. When Reginald was aged about 12 his mother Mary died and his father took a second wife, Elizabeth Louisa (nee Fletcher) of Pye Hill. A stepbrother John T. and stepsister Catherine were born in 1911 and 1914.
Photo HMS Monarch (Public Domain).
From the little we have been able to ascertain, Reginald enlisted on 30th March, 1914. He served with the R.M.A. at Dunkirk in 1914, later being transferred to R.M.A. Cromarty and, ultimately, to HMS Monarch.
The Absent Voters Roll of 1918/1919 indicates that Reginald (under the incorrect Service Number of 14088) was serving with the Royal Marine Artillery, aboard HMS Monarch which was the second of the Orion-class battleships, laid down in 1910 and commissioned in 1912. She could carry a crew of 750 to 1,100 men, was 568 feet long with a displacement of 25,870 tons when fully laden and was one of the first Royal Navy battleships to have a full big gun armament on the centre line. She came out of the Battle of Jutland in 1916 unscathed. In 1924 Monarch‘s final fate was to be towed 50 miles South of the Scilly Isles where in early 1925 she was used for target practice and attacked by a squadron of Royal Air Force Bombers who scored a number of hits. Several battleships and cruisers also fired on her and after 12 hours of shelling and bombing, HMS Revenge scored the final hit and Monarch sank.
Reginald was a recipient of the 1914 Star, as well as the British War and Victory Medals.
Photo: Florence May Cattell.
On 9th July 1919 Reginald married Florence May Cattell, born St. Pancras, London at Rochford in Essex. They had children Roy, Reginald Walter and Jean Mary.
Reginald’s father John Thomas Noon (died 1947) and his second wife Elizabeth (died 1942) are buried at Westwood, St Mary’s.
Reginald died in 1969 at Braintree, Essex.
Personal photos courtesy: Noon Family