Photo: James Pasby
21/108 Private
C.E. Moule
Tyneside Scottish N.F.
22nd December 1917 Age 43
Lest We Forget
Jacky Cooper has provided the following:
Charles Edward (known as Edward) was the son of David Moule and Eliza Young Palmer, who had married in West Ham, Essex in 1858. David was a carman and Eliza a tailoress. Edward was the couple’s sixth child, born early in 1874. He was taken for baptism to St Mark’s church at Victoria Docks on 1 February 1874.
By the time Edward was six the family was living at 22 Burnham Street, West Ham. Edward’s mother, Eliza died in 1889, and his father married again in August the following year. When the census was taken in 1891 the family was living in Clarence Road, West Ham. There were only three children still at home and 17 year old Edward was working as a sugar baker’s labourer.
Edward’s older sister Kate married in 1895, and lived in Cowpen, Northumberland. At some point Edward moved north to live with his sister and her family. When the 1901 census return was made, he was still with them at 29 Wright Street, and was working as a ship plater’s helper.
Edward remained in the shipbuilding trade and in the spring of 1910, when he was 36 he married Sarah Tucker. The couple lived at 10 Marlow Street, Blyth when the census was taken the following year. Sadly Sarah died early in 1914 aged just 47.
When war broke out later that year Edward, already 40 years old, was quick to volunteer. Though his service records haven’t survived, it appears from the amount of war gratuity payment he earned that he enlisted in the autumn of 1914. Edward was posted to 21st (Service) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers which was formed on 26 September 1914. Commonwealth War Graves Commission records indicate that his service number was 21106; the new ‘Pals’ battalions used a different numbering system to existing battalions, whereby all numbers were prefixed by the number of the battalion, so it is likely that Edward’s number would have originally been written 21/106, indicating that he was the 106th man to join the battalion.
It seems that when the battalion went to France in January 1916 Edward was retained at the Depot in the UK - there is no sign of a medal index card or medal award roll in his name, nor was he issued with a Silver War Badge.
In the summer of 1916 Edward married again in Gateshead. His new bride was Sarah Elizabeth Renwick, who had been widowed in 1912. But the couple were not destined to have a long marriage and less than eighteen months later Edward died on 22 December 1917. The entry for Edward in the register of Soldiers’ Effects clearly shows his service number as 21/108 and gives his place of death as at home, in Dunston. He was entitled to £14 War Gratuity payment, which was paid to Sarah.
Edward’s death was attributable to his service during the war, and he was duly given a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone on which Sarah paid for the inscription ‘Lest we forget’.
Sarah remained in Whickham, and in 1939 was living with one of her sons at Glebe Cottage on Front Street.
Edward Charles Moule is remembered in Dunston on D31.01 and in Whickham on W86.09
