Ralph Noble was born and educated in Sydney, graduating in medicine in 1916. At an early stage he turned towards psychiatry and neurology, becoming a medical officer in the Department of Mental Hospitals of NSW from 1916 to 1919. Two years of general practice followed.

He went to Cambridge in 1921, took the DPM and worked at the Maudsley, London and Queen Square hospitals before returning to Sydney. In 1923 he was the first person to be appointed a psychiatrist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, with the title honorary assistant physician to the psychiatry clinic. He was given full status in 1928. In 1931 Noble accepted an invitation to investigate and report on the teaching of psychiatry in the United States and while there was appointed clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University. The report, completed in 1933, led to better integration with other disciplines in the teaching of psychological medicine.

He returned to Sydney in 1934 to resume his clinical work and to act as lecturer in psychiatry at University of Sydney during the absence of Professor WS Dawson on leave. Later the same year he was appointed consultant psychiatrist in charge of the new psychiatric department at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, a post he then held for over twenty years. During this time he conducted a private practice as a psychiatrist in Cambridge and in London.

As an elected member of the Association of Physicians of Australasia, Ralph Noble was eligible for Fellowship of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians at its foundation in 1938. However because he was then a permanent resident of Britain he decided not to accept Fellowship. The Fellowship number (161) which had been reserved for him was not re-allocated and remains unused to this day.

He died at Cambridge leaving his widow, two daughters, of whom one was an almoner and the other a gynaecologist, and a son, an agricultural scientist, who in due course returned to Australia.