A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Newnham, Nathaniel
NEWNHAM. (Lieutenant, 1815.)
Nathaniel Newnham entered the Navy, 15 Mav 1807, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Superb 74 Capts Donald M‘Leod and Sam. Jackson. In that ship which bore the broad pendant and flag of the late Sir Rich. Goodwin Keats, he accompanied the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807, went to the Mediterranean in pursuit of a French squadron which had effected its escape from Rochefort, assisted at the embarkation from Nyeborg of the Spanish army under the Marquis de la Romana in Aug. 1808, was frozen up in Jan. 1809 at Gottenborg (whence the Superb was only extricated by a canal being cut through four miles of ice), and in the following Aug. co-operated in the attack upon Flushing. After a servitude of rather more than five months and a half at Spithead in the Puissant 74, Capt. Robt. Hall, he became Midshipman, in April, 1810, of the Theban 36, Capt. Stephen Thos. Digby; which frigate, at noon on 8 Sept. 1812, was caught in a typhoon in the China Sea, and before midnight was left with nothing standing but her foremast and bowsprit. On his return to England with Capt. Digby in the Cornwallis 74, Mr. Newnbam, in Oct. 1814, joined the Tyrian brig, Capt. Augustus Baldwin, stationed in the Channel. He was next received on board the Bellerophon 74 and Salisbury 50, the latter bearing the flag of Sir K. G. Keats at Newfoundland; where, in the course of 1815, on 1 Jan. in which year he had been awarded a commission, he was appointed a Lieutenant of the Harlequin 18, Capt. Wm. Kempthome: From 12 Dec. ensuing until paid off, 17 April, 1819, he again served in the East Indies on board the Towey 24, Capts. Hew Steuart and Wm. Hill. His last appointments were – 2 June, 1824, to the Coast Blockade, in which he was for some time employed as Supernumerary-Lieutenant of the Ramillies 74, Capt. Wm. M‘Culloch, and Hyperion 42, Capt. Wm. Jas. Mingaye – 22 Jan. 1827, as Senior, to the Alligator 28, Capt. Wm. Pitt Canning, on the Halifax station – 5 March following, to the charge, for five years, of the Signal station on Kingston Hill – and, 12 Jan. 1835, to the command (which he retained until the commencement of 1841) of a station in the Coast Guard. In 1840 he received a Silver Medal from the Shipwreck Society, and the thanks of the Royal Humane Society, for his exertions in saving the crews of three vessels wrecked on the beach between Bearshide and Black Rock, co. Cornwall.
Lieut. Newnham is Senior of 1815. He married, 8 June, 1819, Mary, youngest daughter of Dr. Cooke, of Gower Street, Bedford Square, London. Agents – Messrs. Chard.