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Noel PRYDE OBE MM MBBS

PRYDE

Date of birth8 October 1897
PlaceSurrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
ParentsAnthony Lowes and Fanny Susanna (nee Williams) Pryde
Date of death22 July 1972
PlaceSt. Leonards, New South Wales, Australia
Age74
Scotch Year(s)1908 to 1915

Service record and post-war life

Noel Pryde was a 19-year-old student when he enlisted in Melbourne on 30 January 1917. He had been in cadets at school and in the militia. His brother Anthony would be killed on the Western Front in October 1917. By March 1917 Noel was a Driver with the 26th Reinforcements to the 1st Divisional Ammunition Column. They embarked from Melbourne in May 1917.

In England in September Noel transferred to Signals Engineers, still as a driver. He was taken on strength of the 4th Division Signals Company on 15 January 1918. A month later he reverted to the rank of Sapper at his own request. It was with this Company that Noel earned his Military Medal on 18 September 1918. His citation, reproduced below, shows that under heavy shell fire near Le Verguier, north-west of St Quentin, in France, he helped to establish and maintain communications between an artillery brigade headquarters and its gun batteries. His coolness, disregard of danger, and untiring work all impressed and inspired those around him. Noel returned to Australia from England on 5 March 1919. 

Noel resumed his medical studies and graduated MBBS (1924) from Melbourne University, where he rowed in the Ormond College crew. He was medical superintendent of the Repatriation Sanatorium at Stanthorpe, Queensland (1930-33), medical officer of Melbourne’s Repatriation Out-Patients’ Clinic (1937-42) and medical superintendent of Lady Davidson House in New South Wales (1942-55).

From 1958 Noel was president of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Associations of Australia (NSW), and was national president of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Associations of Australia (1962-67). From 1967 he was vice-patron of the Royal Guide Dogs for the Blind Associations of Australia, and from 1969, president of the Australian National Council for the Blind. He died at St. Leonards, New South Wales, in 1972. Noel had married Eunice Constance Sennett (d. 1985) in 1926, and their sons Dr Donald Pryde and Ian Pryde both attended Scotch from 1938 to 1942.

Photographs and Documents:

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A letter signed by Noel’s parents and giving him permission to join the AIF. His brothers and fellow Scotch Collegians Alan, Anthony, and (twin) Donald also served.

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Noel Pryde is at far right among those standing in this photograph of participants in a match between the school first eighteen and Old Boys at Maribyrnong Artillery Camp in 1917.

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Citation for Noel’s Military Medal.

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Honours and Awards
  2. Mishura Scotch Database
  3. 1971 Who’s Who, p.768
  4. National Archives of Australia – B2455, PRYDE NOEL
  5. Scotch Collegian 1917
  6. The AIF Project - https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=246804

Page last updated: 11 November 2015