Mark Noble (biographer)

He was born in Digbeth, Birmingham, the third surviving son of William Heatley Noble, a merchant there.

His father sold, among many other commodities, beads, knives, toys, and other trifles which he distributed wholesale among slave traders, and he had also a large mill for rolling silver and for plating purposes.

On the death of his father he inherited a modest fortune, and was articled to Mr. Barber, a solicitor of Birmingham.

Noble, now a married man, took a house at Knowle, Warwickshire, conveniently situated for both his parishes.

On the recommendation of Sandwich and Leicester Lord Chancellor Thurlow presented Noble to the rectory of Barming, Kent in 1786, where he lived for 42 years.

Both editions were severely handled by Richard Gough in the preface to his "Short Genealogical View of the Family of Oliver Cromwell" (printed as a portion of the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica in 1785), and in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1787 (p. 516), and by William Richards of Lynn in A Review, &c., 1787.

While excoriating Noble's "extreme imbecility," Thomas Carlyle made use of the book in his Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches.