Francis William Newman
Francis William Newman was a notable English scholar and reformer born in London in 1805. He was the younger brother of the future Catholic cardinal John Henry Newman and came from a family with deep roots in banking and paper manufacturing. Initially educated at Ealing and then at Oxford University, Newman faced financial struggles after his family's bank collapsed, prompting him to live with his brother during his studies. His academic prowess was evident when he earned first-class honors, leading to a fellowship at Balliol College. Over time, Newman developed significant doubts about Anglican doctrines, which influenced his decision not to pursue a clerical role within the Church of England. He had a diverse career as a tutor and professor, contributing to various academic fields, including classics, logic, and political economy. Newman was also an advocate for vegetarianism and served as president of the Vegetarian Society. He published extensively, with notable works that reflect his philosophical and theological explorations. He spent his later years in Weston-super-Mare, where he passed away in 1897.
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Francis William Newman
Nonfiction Writer
- Born: June 27, 1805
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: October 4, 1897
Biography
Francis William Newman was born in London in 1805, the fourth child of John Newman, a banker, and Jemima Fourdrinier Newman, who came from a paper manufacturing family. He was also the younger brother of John Henry Newman, who would become a Catholic cardinal. The Newmans were members of the Church of England, and they encouraged their children to develop thorough knowledge and enjoyment of scripture. As a boy, Newman, like his two older brothers, attended the private school of Dr. George Nicholas in Ealing, Middlesex, and in 1821, when he was sixteen years old, he traveled to Oxford in preparation for his enrollment at Oxford University’s Worcester College, which was to take place the following year. However, his family was in financial distress at the time, with his father’s bank having closed, and Newman lived with his brother John Henry, a student at Trinity College who supported them both with his tutoring income. In 1826 Newman earned first-class honors in both classics and mathematics and was elected a fellow of Balliol College.
However, over the years Newman had been developing doubts about the Anglican religion as well as some nontraditional views regarding such tenets as the Trinity, observance of the Sabbath, and infant baptism; he did not share his concerns with his brother because he wondered wondering if John Henry might have Catholic leanings. Though aware he could not in good conscience serve as a Church of England clergyman, Newman still wanted to serve in a Christian capacity and he traveled to Dublin, Ireland, in 1827 to work as a tutor. While there, he suffered a broken heart after being rejected when he proposed marriage to Maria Rosina Giberne. Redirecting his energies, he embarked in 1830 with newfound friends on a mission to spread Christianity in Baghdad, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The trip turned out to be a disaster and Newman returned to England in June 1833; he recounted some of his experiences in Personal Narrative, in Letters, Principally from Turkey, in the Years 1830-1833 (1856).
Newman became a classical tutor at a Bristol college, where he gave the lectures that would comprise his first book, Lectures on Logic, or on the Science of Evidence Generally, Embracing Both Demonstrative and Probable Reasonings, with the Doctrine of Causation, Delivered at Bristol College in the Year 1836 (1838). In 1835, one year after joining the Bristol faculty, Newman married Maria Kennaway, with whom he had a happy forty- year marriage that lasted until Kennaway’s death in July, 1876. As his philosophy developed, Newman became a professor of Latin at Manchester New College in 1840, staying there until 1846, when he accepted a professorship at University College in London; he remained at University College until 1869 and served as the chair in Latin until 1863.
Throughout the years, Newman studied mathematics and oriental languages, and he began writing more prolifically in 1847, the year his History of the Hebrew Monarchy was published. Phases of Faith: Or, Passages from the History of My Creed, published three years later, recounts Newman’s religious odyssey and transformation. His other writings focused on varied topics, including logic, history, grammar, Arabic, political economy, Austrian politics, and even diet.
Upon his 1869 retirement from University College, Newman remained in London for some time before moving first to Clifton and then to Weston-super-Mare, and he sustained an active lifestyle. In addition to his other academic pursuits, Newman was president of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain from 1873 to 1884, and he both lectured and wrote on the benefits of a vegetable-based diet. In 1883 he was elected an honorary fellow of Worcester College at Oxford, and he also held positions in the British and foreign Unitarian Association and the Land Nationalization Society. He spent his final years quietly in Weston-super-Mare with his second wife. He died on October 4, 1897.