Gunner Henry Richard Noquet
113th Battery, Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 1886
Place of Birth: Dawlish, Devon
Date of Death: 16 May 1915 at Festubert aged 28
Buried: Le Touret Military Cemetery, France. Remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
Awarded the 1914 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
Gunner Henry Richard Noquet, age 28.
Born in Dawlish on 15 September 1886 and baptised on 1 October, 1886.
Henry was the was son of William, a barman and Emma Noquet.
In 1891 Henry was shown on the census living with his widowed mother and sister at 4 Daimond's Lane, Teignmouth.
1901 showed him working as an errand boy living with his mother, who was working as a charwoman, and his sister still at Daimond's Lane.
Royal Artillery Cap Badge
Henry was serving overseas in India with the Royal Field Artillery in the 1911 Census having previously enlisted as a regular soldier around 1907/8, service number 45759.
Prior to the war he was registered as a reservist and was immediately called up at the beginning of August, arriving in France to join his regiment on 16 August 1914.
He was serving with the 113th Battery, Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery, when he was struck by a shell and killed on 16 May 1915 at Festubert.
Buried in Le Touret Military Cemetery, France. Remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
Grave Inscription reads: “I Shall Go To Him But He Shall Not Return To Me”.
The Royal Artillery at the Front
In WW1 the Royal Artillery was known as "The Gunners", it was divided into:
Horse Artillery: mobile with light horse-drawn guns.
Field Artillery: worked close to the front line using larger guns with more range.
Garrison Artillery: (heavy artillery) used very massive guns that were more static, based behind the front line and had a far longer range and vast power.
Before the men left the safety of their trenches and went 'over the top' to capture the enemy positions the Gunners would often fire a huge artillery barrage to break the enemy's barbed wire and other defences and kill defending troops.
The Battle of Festubert
The men of his unit were fighting in the Battle of Festubert (15–25 May 1915), an attack by the British army in the Artois region of France in which the 2nd Division lost 5,445 casualties.
The Battle of Festubert was part of a series of attacks by the French Tenth Army and the British First Army in the Second Battle of Artois (3 May – 18 June 1915).
Men preparing for a gas attack in the 2nd Battle of Artois 20th May 1915. © IWM (Q 51650)
Gunner Henry Richard Noquet of Dawlish died on the 16 May 1915 at the Battle of Festubert aged 28
