Born in London, he was the son of Herman Noorthouck, a bookseller who had a shop, the Cicero's Head, Great Piazza, Covent Garden, and whose stock was sold off in 1730.
Early in life John Noorthouck was patronised by Owen Ruffhead and William Strahan the printer.
He was for almost fifty years a liveryman of the Company of Stationers, and spent most of his life in London, living in 1773 in Barnard's Inn, Holborn.
states in the Preface starting at page vii, "The present editor esteems it a duty incumbent on him to advertise his brethren of the general alterations the following work has undergone with a view to improvement."
[2] John Russell Smith in London, April 1852, offered for sale an unprinted autobiography by Noorthouck; it was later acquired by Yale University.