Roden Noel

Who was Roden Noel?

Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel, also known as Noël, was an English poet.; He was a Cambridge Apostle.

The son of Charles Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained his M.A. in 1858. He then spent two years travelling in the East. In 1863, he married Alice de Broë, daughter of the director of the Ottoman Bank in Beirut. Their third child, Eric, who died aged five, is commemorated in Roden Noel's best-known book of verse, A Little Child's Monument.

His other volumes are:

Behind the Veil, and other Poems, not included in his collected works

Beatrice, and other Poems

The Red Flag

Livingstone in Africa

Songs of the Heights and Deeps

A Modern Faust, and other Poems

Poor People's Christmas

My Sea, and other Poems.

The latter part of his life was spent at Brighton, but he died in the train station of Mainz in Germany. His son Conrad Noel became a Christian Socialist, famous as the "turbulent priest of Thaxted".

Roden Noel's versification was unequal and sometimes harsh, but he has a genuine feeling for nature, and the work is permeated by philosophic thought.