Background
He was a Roman Catholic, born 14 January 1810, the son of Mary Dewhurst and Edward Noble of Preston, Lancashire, a descendant of a Yorkshire Catholic family.
He was a Roman Catholic, born 14 January 1810, the son of Mary Dewhurst and Edward Noble of Preston, Lancashire, a descendant of a Yorkshire Catholic family.
Apprenticed to a Preston surgeon named Thomas Moore, Noble was in time admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a licentiate of Apothecaries Hall.
In 1834 he began to practise in Manchester, becoming a specialist in mental illness. He was President of the Manchester Phrenological Society. Noble"s views on mental illness influenced the terminology introduced by Henry Monro.
He dropped phrenological ideas in 1846 after criticism from his friend Carpenter.
Noble died at Manchester, 12 January 1885. In 1840 Noble married Frances Mary Louisa Ward, of Dublin.
They had eight children, one of them Frances Noble the novelist, author of Gertrude Mannering (1875).