Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/339

 great ceremony placed in a high chair, for the benefit of being better heard,’ and coolly admits that he deliberately exaggerated, ‘and fabricated stories which helped to terrify them’ (Life and Confessions, 1846? pp. 42–43). While in Dublin Newell lodged in Dublin Castle. Early in 1798 he pretended to feel remorse for his treachery, and announced to Cooke his intention of giving up his employment as a spy. It was arranged that he should go to England, with a pension, on 16 Feb. 1798, and settle in Worcester, under the name of Johnston, ostensibly to carry on his profession as a painter. Shortly after the final interview with Cooke he brought out ‘The Life and Confessions of Newell, the Informer,’ which purports to be written and printed in England. But it was privately printed at Belfast, by a printer named Storey, and Newell was then in that city. He confessed to receiving 2,000l. as a reward ‘for having been the cause of confining 227 innocent men to languish in either the cell of a bastile or the hold of a tender, and, as I have heard, has been the cause of many of their deaths’ (Life and Confessions). The work, which is unquestionably genuine, was dedicated to John Fitzgibbon, earl of Clare, and contains a portrait of the author by himself. It aroused much attention, and had a large sale.

Newell finally prepared to leave for America, taking with him the wife of an acquaintance whom he had persuaded to elope, but he was assassinated in June 1798 by those whom he had betrayed. He was induced, it is said, to go out in a boat to meet the ship which was to convey him to America, and is supposed to have been thrown into the sea. Another account says he was shot on the road near Roughford, and a third that he was drowned at Garnogle. Madden gives some particulars of the finding of bones thought to be Newell's on the beach at Ballyholme, ten miles from Belfast (United Irishmen, 2nd ser. i. 352).

[Froude's English in Ireland, iii. 245, where the name is wrongly given as ‘Nevile;’ Life and Confessions of Newell the Informer, 1798; Fitzpatrick's Secret Service under Pitt, 1892, pp. 12, 104, 173; Madden's Lives of United Irishmen, 2nd ser. i. 347 et seq.] 

NEWELL, ROBERT HASELL (1778–1852), amateur artist and author, born in Essex in 1778, was son of Robert Richardson Newell, surgeon. After attending Colchester school he was admitted pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, on 22 April 1795, and was elected scholar on 2 Nov. following. He graduated B.A. in 1799 as fourth wrangler, and proceeded M.A. in 1802, and B.D. in 1810. On 1 April 1800 he was admitted fellow, was lecturer from 1800 to 1804, and acted as dean of the college from 1809 to 1 June 1813, when he was presented to the college rectory of Little Hormead, Hertfordshire (Registers of St. John's College). He was also twenty-six years curate of Great Hormead. He died on 31 Jan. 1852, aged 64 (cf., Hertfordshire, ‘Edwinstree Hundred,’ p. 79).

Newell was a good amateur artist, having studied under William Payne (fl. 1800) [q. v.] His edition of Goldsmith's ‘Poetical Works’ (1811 and 1820), in which he attempted to ascertain, chiefly from local observation, the actual scene of ‘The Deserted Village,’ is embellished with drawings by him, engraved in aquatint by Samuel Alken [q. v.] He likewise illustrated his ‘Letters on the Scenery of North Wales’ (1821), the drawings being engraved in aquatint by T. Sutherland. In 1845 he published a little book entitled, ‘The Zoology of the English Poets corrected by the Writings of Modern Naturalists.’

[Information from R. F. Scott, esq.; Newell's Works; Gent. Mag. 1852, pt. i. p. 311.] 

NEWENHAM, EDWARD (1732–1814), Irish politician, younger son of William Newenham, esq., of Coolmore, co. Cork, and Dorothea, daughter and heiress of Edward Worth, esq., baron of the exchequer in Ireland, was born on 14 May 1732. He was appointed collector of the excise of Dublin in 1764, but was removed in 1772, apparently for political reasons. He represented the borough of Enniscorthy from 1769 to 1776, and the county of Dublin from 1776 to 1797. In a list of members of parliament in 1777, with remarks by Thomas Pelham (Addit. MSS. 33118, f. 151), is this entry: ‘Sir Edward Newenham, county Dublin; by popular election; opposition; a great enthusiast, now rich.’ He was a man of moderate political views, his great object being the removal of existing abuses and a reform of parliament, within the limits of the constitution, and on strictly protestant lines. On the occasion of the Catholic Relief Bill of 1778 he induced parliament to add a clause for the removal of nonconformist disabilities; but it was opposed by government, and struck out by the English privy council. In consequence of a dispute in parliament a duel took place on 20 March in the same year between him and John Beresford. Neither was wounded in the encounter, but the latter took the affair in high dudgeon. ‘I owe it,’ he wrote, ‘to the encouragement he has received of late