His father, Thomas Embleton was born in East Chevington and his mother Anne (née Cawood) from Alwinton village, which is west of Alnwick and at the head of the River Coquet.
After leaving Witton School, he started his apprenticeship on 23 April 1827, bound to a Mr. Thomas Leighton, the Senior Surgeon at Newcastle Infirmary for a period of five years, the cost of which to his guardian, was £500, not an inconsiderately sum in those days.
All the time, in addition to seeing the sights, they visited numerous medical establishments, and at Pisa they petitioned the university, sat the examination for doctorate of medicine, passed and were granted diplomas on 14 September 1836 Embleton was married in 1847 in Whickham to Miss Elizabeth Turner (died 1869), who also had a great interest in nature and the sciences; they had three children.
He wrote a document on the peculiarities of the local dialect in 1887, followed by a “canny little poem” called “The Ahd Pitman's Po'try tiv ees Marrah”.
This poem appeared in the Newcastle Courant around 1890 with no indication of authorship, but Thomas Allan in his Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs attributed it to Embleton.