Charles E. Noad

Charles was a pillar of the community for over 50 years. I know that he had been a member of the Tolkien Society since 1971, and was a friend of Christopher Tolkien and Rayner Unwin.

He also took this famous photo of Christopher, that we all know so well in 1992.

He will be missed!

Christopher at Keble College, Oxford, 1992. Photo by Charles Noad

Very sad news, I did not know Charles personally, but his influence within the Tolkien community cannot be overstated. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

I first met Charles at Oxonmoot and at the 2012 Oxonmoot asked him to sign his book on what he thought would be in The Silmarillion, The Trees, The Jewels and the Rings published in 1977 just before the release of The Silmarillion. Charles was able to produce this book because of his knowledge at the time of Tolkien. I remember him saying to me that he got a lot wrong in the book, but was very proud of his guesses that were spot on.

You could always spot Charles at a Tolkien Event as he always wore his camera around his neck, I thought this was strange when I first met him, but this alone is a contribution from Charles of capturing photos from pretty much every Tolkien event in the UK. I hope the Tolkien Society add these photos to the archives of the Society, and they are digitized, so all members can see this fantastic record produced by Charles.

Charles was also a fantastic proofreader and very much in demand to check Tolkien books before they were released. He was a great help to Christopher Tolkien in proofreading the whole of the History of Middle-earth, but he also checked a lot of other books, such as The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, A Secret Vice, History of the Hobbit and many more.

He will also be remembered for the huge number of contributions over the years to the Tolkien Society publications Amon Hen and Mallorn, sadly a lot of his most recent contributions were obituaries.

We have lost an outstanding contributor to Tolkien studies and the Tolkien Society. He will be hugely missed.

David Bratman's blog entry

http://kalimac.blogspot.com/2023/07/charles-e-noad.html

Thanks for sharing Trotter.

I never met Charles personally but naturally know many people who did, and when they would talk about famous fans, there would always be a "oh, have you met my friend Charles?". Everybody saw him as their friend, that is a very worthy way to be remembered.

A sad day in our community.

onthetrail wrote:

Everybody saw him as their friend, that is a very worthy way to be remembered.

This is such a lovely thing to say and way to live. I am quite new to all this but he sounds like a real gent. RIP.

A sad day. I didn't know Charles very well, but he was instantly recognisable at any TS event and always there to record the people and the place with his camera. He was also the Society's bibliographer for many years - even before such things were cool

This is a huge loss, indeed. I met Charles at my very first Oxonmoot and saw him everytime I had the opportunity to be with one of the TS events. I knew him to be knowledgeable about Tolkien on a level that I would love to achieve one day - and I knew him to be the 'chronicler', particularly of the early years of the society. I can only hope his collection(s) will found a home he would have loved.

Obituary from The Tolkien Society

Obituary: Charles E. Noad