Matthew Noble (23 March 1817 – 23 June 1876) was a leading British portrait sculptor. Carver of numerous monumental figures and busts including work, memorializing Victorian era royalty and statesmen, displayed in locations such as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral and Parliament Square, London.
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). 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 a 1876 railway 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
1845-1849
1850-1859
1860-1869
1870 and later
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. Recumbent effigy of Sir Stephen Glynne (d. 1874) in St Deiniol's Church, Hawarden Memorial to Rev Henry Venn, 1875, St Paul's Cathedral, London Marble bust of Lord Hobart, c. 1875, St. Mary's Church, Chennai Chest monument with effigy to Lord Lyveden, died 1876, in the Church of St Andrew, Brigstock, Northamptonshire. Several memorials, dating from 1868 to 1888, in the Church of St Mary and All Saints at Swynnerton, Staffordshire.