Matthew Noble

Life

Noble was born in Hackness, near Scarborough, as the son of a stonemason, and served his apprenticeship under his father. He left Yorkshire for London when quite young, there he studied under John Francis (the father of sculptor Mary Thornycroft); he later married Francis's granddaughter, Frances Claxton. Exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy from 1845 until his death, Noble became recognised after winning the competition to construct the Wellington Monument in Manchester in 1856.

Noble created a large body of work including portrait busts, statues and monuments. The deaths of two his sons, including Herbert (himself a promising sculptor, who was killed, aged 19, in the Abbots Ripton rail accident) are said to have contributed to Noble's own early death, aged 58, in June of the same year. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London, on the west side of the main entrance path from the north, towards the central colonnade. His uncompleted works were finished by his assistant Joseph Edwards, who also discarded the studio's plaster models.

Selected works

Church monuments and memorials

Throughout his career Noble was responsible for creating a number of monuments and memorials for British churches and cathedrals. Examples include

Carved stone reredos depicting The Last Supper in the Church of All Saints at Eskdaleside cum Ugglebarnby in North Yorkshire.

Wall monument to Lady Vanden Bempde-Johnstone in the Church of St. Peter, Hackness, North Yorkshire.

Wall tablet memorial to Ann Harland, died 1844, in the Church of All Saints at Brompton, Scarborough.

Pink granite tomb monument with bust, now lost, to Thomas Hood, died 1845, in Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

A monument to Lord Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere, died 1857, designed by George Gilbert Scott with an effigy by Noble in the Church of St. Mark, Salford.

An 1859 memorial to F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, designed by George Gilbert Scott and carved by Noble, in the Church of All Saints, Nocton, Lincolnshire.

Tomb chest with effigy, in grey and white marble, as a memorial to Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, died 1859, in the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Flitton.

A chest monument with marble effigy to John Elphinstone, 13th Lord Elphinstone, died 1860, in the Church of St Peter, Limpsfield, Surrey.

Monument, with effigy, to Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, 5th Baronet, died 1872, in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Rufford, Lancashire.

A monument, with life-size figures, dating from 1872 to William and Mary Heath in the Church of St. Lawrence at Biddulph, Staffordshire.

Other works

Bust of David Napier, 1871, Glasgow Transport Museum

Statue of William Cotton, 1855, Bank of England

Busts of Oliver Cromwell, Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort in Manchester Town Hall

Bust of former mayor Thomas Goadsby, 1862, in Manchester Town Hall

Statues, on high cylindrical pedestals, of Queen Victoria, 1858, and Albert, Prince Consort, 1865, in the foyer of Leeds Town Hall

Marble busts of Edward, Prince of Wales and of Queen Alexandra in Leeds Town Hall

James McGrigor in the small garden to the Royal Army Medical College, London

Statues of David Hume, John Hunter and Humphry Davy at the rear of the Royal Academy building, London

Captain William (Bill) Henry Cecil George Pechell (1830–1855) now in Waterloo Street Community Garden, Hove, East Sussex

Bust of Frederick Dawes Danvers completed in 1863

Marble statue of Charles Canning, 1st Earl Canning and a bust of Charlotte Canning, Countess Canning, both 1852, both for the interior of the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata

Statue of Richard Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, c. 1875, at Mayo College, Ajmer, India

Statue of Albert, Prince Consort, Bombay, India, 1869. Located at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai