 His father was John Scoble, an English Congregational minister and later Canadian politician who was active in the British abolitionism movement from the 1830s to the 1850s, including assisting the integration of escaped American slaves into Canada.His brother, Thomas Clarkson Scoble, was an early advocate of the Hudson Bay Railway in Manitoba.In 1863, Scoble married Augusta Hariette Nicholson.