Author: Newstead, Robert
Biography:
NEWSTEAD, Robert (1789-1865: WBIS)
The son of Frances (King) and Francis Newstead, he was born into a working-class family in Hoveton in Norfolk. Converted to Methodism in 1807, he became a circuit preacher and minister. The first edition of his rhyming catechism, Instructions for Babes (later expanded as Ideas for Infants), was almost certainly published in 1816 as Newstead declared in the 1825 edition, but no copy has been located. He was called to missionary work. During his posting in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1816-25, where he was the first resident minister of Negombo, he published translations of the Psalms and New Testament into Portuguese and Sinhalese. The girls' school established during his tenure was renamed Newstead Girls' College on its centenary in 1919. Ill health forced him to return to England, where he resumed circuit preaching and played a leading role in the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (he launched their mission in Paris 1833-7). It appears from a pamphlet of 1824 defending his character that he may have disappointed a Norfolk woman, Ann Johnson, with whom he corresponded during his time away, but in 1828 he married Susan Mitchell Richards. The couple had five daughters. After the death of his wife, Newstead retired in 1861 to Boston Spa, where his four surviving daughters established a boarding school, and where he died. His missionary papers are at SOAS in London, his private papers, books, and journals at John Rylands University in Manchester. (ancestry.com 13 May 2020; Jane Swan, "Portrait of Robert Newstead" [1807] posted as PDF on websuite.co.uk/coefamilytree 14 May 2020)