2ND LIEUT. NOEL VEDER WALLIS, 9TH BATTN. CHESHIRE REGT. KILLED IN ACTION NEAB DICKEBUSCH, APRIL 10TH, 1917. AGED 35. At the School 1895—1900 (Judde House). 2nd Lieut. Noel Veder Wallis was the third son of the late William Emerson Wallis, of Lloyd's, and Mrs. Wallis, of Wilmar, Broadstone, Dorset, and grandson of the late Mr. James Seabrooke, of Grays, Essex. Of his three cousins who were at Tonbridge the eldest, 2nd Lieut. F. G. Seabrooke (J.H. 1896—1900), was in the R.F.C.; the second, Capt. A. S. Seabrooke, R.A.M.C. (J.H. 1898—1903), died on active service in Mesopotamia, July 5th, 1916; the youngest, Lieut. G. S. Seabrooke (J.H. 1902—7), R.A.S.C. (T.F.), was invalided from Salonika in September, 1915, and did not subsequently serve abroad. Entering the School in September, 1895, N. V. Wallis left from the Lower Sixth in July, 1900, as a Lance-Corporal in the Cadet Corps, and going up to University College, Oxford, took his degree in 1903 with a 2nd Class in Jurisprudence. He was articled to a firm of Solicitors in the City, and, being admitted a Solicitor in 1908, took offices at 17, Philpott Lane, E.C., and was doing well and getting together a good connection when war broke out. On October 14th, 1914, he enlisted as a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues) at Albany Barracks, and trained with them till he obtained a commission as Temporary 2nd Lieutenant, dated March 1st, 1915, in the 8th Battn. of the South Wales Borderers. After going through an officers' training course at Harrogate he joined his Regiment at Seaford and then went with it to Aldershot, and, himself keen on games, took a keen interest in the life and games of his men as well as in their military training. He was then transferred to the 9th (Reserve Service) Battn. at Rhyl, and from November till the following January was attached to the 9th Shropshire Light Infantry at Whitchurch, Salop. On January 14th, 1916, he was sent out to Egypt and transferred to the 12th Battn. of the Cheshire Regiment, with which he went to Salonika. He was invalided from the Doiran front in November with malaria, and after various vicissitudes and voyagings, partly due to the sinking of the Britannica, by which he was to have been sent home, he at last reached Osborne, and after a month's sick leave at home left for France February 9th, 1917, to join the 9th Battn. of the Cheshires. He was sent for a fortnight's Lewis Gun course at the Divisional School of Instruction, and after this was attached, with his Sergeant, to a R.E. Company for some days, having been offered and having accepted the superintendence of all the barbed wiring and trench repair work of the Battalion. On the night of April 10th, 1917, he was killed whilst engaged in this work to the right of Ridge Wood, near Dickebusch, in the Ypres Salient, and was buried in the British Cemetery at Klein Vierstratt, near Kemmel. His Company Commander wrote :— " He was in charge of a working party in the front line when the particular sector he was in suddenly came tinder a heavy hostile trench mortar bombardment. " In his customary cool manner he carried on with the important work for which he had been specially selected, when, most unfortunately, one of the bombs fell so close to him as to kill him instantaneously. " Although he had been with the regiment so short a time, his quiet and pleasant disposition made many friends, and as an officer he will be a tremendous loss to the regiment as a specialist." His CO. also wrote :— " I was unfortunately away from the Battalion when 2nd Lieut. N. V. Wallis joined, and did not make his acquaintance, but from reports I received of him during the short time he spent with us, I was led to form a high opinion of his capabilities, and regarded him as a very promising officer."