Abstract
SIR WILLIAM NOBLE, who died on November 10 at the age of eighty-two, had devoted the whole of his active and strenuous life to the service of electrical communication, in which he rose from the humble grade of telegraph messenger to the leading position in the British Empire. Ho was appointed as a Post Office telegraphist at Aberdeen in 1877 at the age of sixteen, and at once began to show a keen interest in the electrical and technical aides of the telegraph service. He gained many medals, prizes and other honours and after a few years became a lecturer in electricity and telegraphy at Gordon's College, Aberdeen. It was not, however, until 1893 that he obtained a transfer to the P.O. Engineering Department as sectional engineer at Aberdeen. He soon attracted the notice of his departmental chiefs and thereafter his advancement was rapid. In 1897 he was personally selected for appointment as first-class engineer on the headquarters staff in London, by Sir John Gavey, who had had occasion to observe a highly original and efficient means he had devised for the mechanical testing of telegraph poles. Further promotions carried him through the grades of technical officer, assistant superintending engineer, and staff engineer, to that of superintending engineer for the London District in 1907. In 1912 he became assistant engineer-in-chief and in 1919 he succeeded Sir William Slingo as engineer-in-chief, a position which he held until his retirement from the Government service in June 1922.
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PURVES, T. Sir William Noble. Nature 152, 654–655 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/152654a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/152654a0