Portrait and figure sculptor, carver and modeller, born in Stepney, east London, apprenticed at 15 to Italian marble carvers. He progressed to carving large works for sculptors including Sir Charles Wheeler and James Woodford. From the City and Guilds of London Art School Noakes won the Beckworth Travelling Scholarship that took him to Italy, where he particularly studied the works of Giacoma Manzù and Medardo Rosso. He had solo exhibitions in London, Cambridge, Yorkshire and Essex. The House of Commons and Foreign Office hold his portraits of the statesman Lord Avon; the National Portrait Gallery his depictions of the actor Sir Bernard Miles and the composer Alan Rawsthorne; and other subjects included the composer Sir Malcolm Arnold and the painter Isabel Lambert, Rawsthorne’s widow.