Robert Tressell

Robert Noonan (18 April 1870 – 3 February 1911), born Robert Croker and best-known by the pen name Robert Tressell, was an Irish writer best known for his novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists.

Noonan was born in Dublin, Ireland, the illegitimate son of Samuel Croker, a senior member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He was baptised and raised a Roman Catholic by his mother Mary Noonan. His father, who wasn't Catholic, had his own family, but attempted to provide for Robert until his death in 1875.

By 1875 Noonan was living in London. He was recorded on the 1881 England Census, under his step-father Sebastian Zumbühl's surname, living at 27 Elmore Street, Islington, London. Noonan had, in the words of his daughter, Kathleen, "a very good education" and could speak a variety of languages. However, when he was sixteen, he showed signs of a radical political consciousness, and left his family, declaring he "would not live on the family income derived largely from absentee landlordism". It was around this time he changed his surname to his mother's maiden name.

In 1890, Noonan was a sign writer living in Queen's Road, Everton, Liverpool. On 10 June 1890 he appeared at Liverpool County Intermediate Sessions court at Sessions House, Islington, Liverpool after previously having pleaded guilty to housebreaking and larceny on 31 May 1890. On 27 May 1890 he had broken into the dwelling house of his sister's employer, Charles Fay junior, shipping agent, Courtney Road, Great Crosby and stolen a quantity of silver and electro-plated articles. He was given a six-month prison sentence. The case was covered by the Liverpool Mercury newspaper on 2 and 11 June 1890.

By 1891, Noonan had moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he was a painter and decorator. When he married in 1891, he was recorded as Robert Phillipe Noonan, Decorator. The marriage was an unhappy one, with his wife having numerous affairs after the birth of their daughter, Kathleen. They divorced in 1895, and Noonan acquired all the property, including their house in an affluent suburb of Cape Town.

Noonan and his daughter moved to Johannesburg, where he secured a well-paying job with a construction company. It was here that he learned the ways of the industry he would later write about in his novel, although Noonan's actual circumstances varied greatly from the proletarian characters of the book. After becoming Secretary of the Transvaal Federated Building Trades Council, he was able to afford to send his daughter to an exclusive convent school and also to employ a black manservant called Sixpence, of whom he was said to be "very fond".

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