Author: NEWTON, Charles
Biography:
NEWTON, Charles (1776-1839: ancestry.co.uk)
He was probably born in Norwich in 1776 but his parentage and exact place of birth and baptism cannot yet be established with any certainty. He went to the Free Grammar School, Norwich, and dedicated the volume listed here to the master, Rev. Samuel Foster DD, who collected over seventy subscriptions from pupils at the school. He then proceeded to Corpus Christi, Cambridge (Sizar 1794, Matric. 1795, Fellow 1788, BA 1800) and was ordained deacon (1799) and priest (1800). At Cambridge he was awarded the Mawson, Parker, and Borage scholarships--awards for boys from Norwich or Norfolk--and he also held the Spencer scholarship, in the gift of the Master of the college for “one of the most hopeful Youth’s [sic] residing in the College.” He was probably the Rev. Charles Newton who was teaching Latin and Greek at Halesworth school, Suffolk, in 1803. He gave a much-admired sermon on Trafalgar in Dec. 1805 at St. George’s, Colgate, Norwich, but failed to secure the post of vicar of St. Peter’s Morcroft, Norwich, in Dec. 1807. In 1809 he was appointed chaplain to the garrison at Tobago, a minor overseas posting which he later aggrandised as “late Rector of the Island of Tobago, West Indies, and Chaplain to his Majesty’s Forces” when he published Studies in the Science and Practice of Public Speaking, Reading and Recitation (1823). At an unknown date he returned to England and in Oct. 1821 a Mrs. Mary Edridge obtained an injunction (“articles of peace”) against him and he was bound to keep the peace for two years on sureties of £100 and £200. At some point he moved to Heigham, Norfolk, where he died “from the effects of Laudanum--taken in a fit of temporary derangement” (which may be code for suicide) on 18/19 Apr. 1839, and was buried at St. Bartholomew’s on 22 Apr. Unusually, his death certificate was only issued by the deputy coroner a year later, on 12 Apr. 1840. (ancestry.co.uk 24 Dec. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 24 Dec. 2024; CCEd 24 Dec. 2024; Sun 8 Nov. 1809; Norfolk Chronicle, 8 Jan. 1803, 28 Dec. 1805, 12 Dec. 1807, 20 Oct. 1821, 20 Apr. 1839; information from Genny Silvanus, archivist, Corpus Christi, Cambridge) AA