Michael Noble, Baron Glenkinglas Explained

Honorific-Prefix:The Right Honourable
The Lord Glenkinglas
Honorific-Suffix:PC
Office:President of the Board of Trade
Primeminister:Edward Heath
Term Start:20 June 1970
Term End:15 October 1970
Predecessor:Roy Mason
Successor:John Davies
Office1:Secretary of State for Scotland
Term Start1:13 July 1962
Term End1:16 October 1964
Predecessor1:John Maclay
Successor1:William Ross
Office2:Lord Commissioner of the Treasury
Primeminister2:Harold Macmillan
Term Start2:29 November 1961
Term End2:13 July 1962
Predecessor2:Robin Chichester-Clark
Successor2:Gordon Campbell
Parliament3:United Kingdom
Constituency Mp3:Argyll
Term Start3:12 June 1958
Term End3:8 February 1974
Predecessor3:Duncan McCallum
Successor3:Iain MacCormick
Birth Date:13 March 1913
Birth Place:Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain
Death Place:Cairndow, Argyll and Bute, Scotland
Party:Conservative
Alma Mater:Magdalen College, Oxford
Profession:Landowner, farmer
Spouse:Anne Pearson
Children:4

Michael Antony Cristobal Noble, Baron Glenkinglas, PC (13 March 1913 – 15 May 1984) was a Scottish Conservative and Unionist politician.

Noble was the youngest son of Sir John Noble, 1st Baronet, and the grandson of Sir Andrew Noble, 1st Baronet, and was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. A farmer, he was president of the Black Face Sheep Breeders' Association and the Highland Cattle Society. He was an Argyll County Councillor and a director of Associated Fisheries.

From a by-election in June 1958 until his retirement in 1974 he was Member of Parliament for Argyll.

Noble was a Scottish whip from 1960 and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 1961. He was Secretary of State for Scotland from 1962 to 1964 in the governments of Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home, taking over from John Maclay after the Night of the Long Knives. He returned to government as President of the Board of Trade in 1970 and as Minister for Trade from 1970 to 1972 under Edward Heath.

As Scottish Secretary, he presided over the last execution in Scotland when Henry John Burnett was hanged at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen on the morning of 15 August 1963 by the hangman Harry Allen for the murder of merchant seaman Thomas Guyan.

On 3 May 1974 Noble was elevated with a life peerage as Baron Glenkinglas, of Cairndow in the County of Argyll.

Although he was a good 25 years younger than the architectural historian Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel, the two had a very friendly feud. Noble is said to have joked that they were "best of enemies."

He died in May 1984, aged 71.

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