- Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet
Infobox Scientist |name =Andrew Noble
box_width =
image_width =
caption =
birth_date =13 September 1831
birth_place =Greenock
death_date =22 October 1915
death_place =
residence =
citizenship =Scottish
nationality =
ethnicity =
field =physics
work_institutions =
alma_mater =
doctoral_advisor =
doctoral_students =
known_for =ballistics
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences =
influenced =
prizes =
footnotes =Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet KCB (
13 September 1831 -22 October 1915 ) was a Scottishphysicist noted for his work onballistics and gunnery.Born at
Greenock , he was educated atEdinburgh Academy and at theRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich . He was commissioned in theRoyal Artillery in 1849, promotedcaptain in 1855 and became secretary of theRoyal Artillery Institution . He was secretary of the British government select committee on the replacement of smooth-borecannon with rifledartillery and carried out research on the subject. In 1859 he became Assistant-Inspector of Artillery and in 1860 a member of the Ordnance Select Committee and of the Committee on Explosives, remaining on the committee until it was dissolved in 1880.In 1860 he joined Armstrong's armaments works in
Elswick ,Newcastle-upon-Tyne , where Noble continued research into artillery, in particular inventing ways of measuringbreech pressures, and later in 1862 small time intervals to determine the acceleration of projectiles as they travelled down the barrel.He worked with Sir
Frederick Abel on improving the properties ofblack powder . He was awarded theOrder of the Bath in 1881 and knighted in 1893. He served asHigh Sheriff of Northumberland in 1896. He became chairman of Armstrong's company in 1900 and was made abaronet in 1902. Noble claimed that all the Japanese guns which sank theRussia n fleet at the crucialbattle of Tsushima in 1905, had been manufactured at Elswick.In 1871, Andrew Noble bought
Jesmond Dene House , which was originally designed by John Dobson. He later commissionedNorman Shaw and local architectFrank Rich to double the size of the house adding a west wing, billiard room, Gothic porch, Great Hall and a fleet of bedrooms.Jesmond Dene House is now a high class hotel and restaurant.Noble's youngest daughter Ethel married
Alfred Cochrane cricketer and poet who was Company Secretary at Armstrongs. Noble's third son John Noble was a businessman and was created a Baronet in his own right in 1923. The latter's youngest son Michael Noble became a prominent Conservative politician and was created alife peer as Baron Glenkinglas in 1974.References
*Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). "Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage" (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
*rayment-b
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.