no record of this. The
timing of his death, being so close on the heels of the death of his wife and
just before the failure of Agra and Mastermans, does make me wonder if depression
might not have played a part in his demise. This would not have been something
that his fellow bankers would have wanted to include, or even hint at, in their
reports. The Agra was shaky enough as it was. It is worth noting that Henry was
the manager overseeing Thomas Jackson, the future Chief Manager of HSBC. He
must have trained him well.

Henry’s three
orphaned children, ages one to five, were raised by family in England. At the
time of the 1871 census, the baby of the family, Edith Isabella, was living
with her grandparents and a maiden aunt in the townof Clare, Co. Suffolk, England.
She was six years old. I don’t know where the other two children ended up living
after the deaths of their parents. It seems there was dissention about what
would be best for them. A legal case was fought two years after Henry’s death
between his father, John Noble, and the great
uncle and next friend of the children: Thomas Bridge. Since the children
are named in the suit, it probably concerned their needs and/or their assets. Reading
this court case is one job that I will have to leave to the kindness of
strangers. Regardless of how the case played out, it is still a tale of profound
loss and tragedy.

George Edward Noble
and HSBC.

In February 1866, the year of Henry’s death, George Edward
Noble was nineteen years old, and newly recruited by