Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Newenham, Edward
NEWENHAM, Sir 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 that I was obliged to risk my life on an equal footing with such a man’ (Beresford Corresp. i. 23). On the revival of the catholic question in 1782 he spoke strongly against further concessions. ‘We have,’ he said, ‘opened the doors, and I wish we may not repent it, and that they will not make further demands’ (Parliamentary Register, i. 349). He appears to have regarded Grattan with some degree of jealousy, and not altogether to have approved of the munificent grant made to him by parliament. He strongly disapproved of Flood's renunciation agitation, on the ground that he did not make his amendments at the proper time. He was an advocate of protective duties, and, in order to bring the poverty of the country more forcibly before government, he moved in 1783 to limit supplies to six months. For the same reason he also opposed the proposal to increase the salary of the secretary to the lord-lieutenant. He took part in the volunteer convention, and in parliament supported Flood's Reform Bill. He scouted the idea that the bill was an attempt to overawe parliament. ‘The county of Dublin,’ he declared ‘was not a military congress, and yet it had instructed him on the subject of a parliamentary reform’ (ib. ii. 239). In February 1784 he moved an amendment to the address in favour of protecting duties, but it was rejected without a division. During 1785 he suffered much from ill-health, but was able to take part in the debate on the commercial propositions, which, as being a friend to both countries, he wished had never been moved. He continued to advocate moderate reforms, such as a repeal of the police law, a place and pension bill, and an equitable adjustment of tithes; but as time went on he lost much of his old enthusiasm. The constitution, he said in 1792, required some improvement, but the times were unpropitious to the experiment. As for granting the elective franchise to the catholics, he was ‘confident that such a privilege would entirely destroy the protestant establishment in church and state’ (ib. xii. 190). He did not sit in the last parliament, but he was known to regard the scheme of the union with favour. He died at Retiero, near Blackrock, Dublin, on 2 Oct. 1814.
He married in February 1754 Grace Anna, daughter of Sir Charles Burton, and had issue eighteen children. His son, Robert O'Callaghan Newenham, was author of ‘Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Ireland,’ London, 1830, 2 vols. 4to. His nephew, Thomas Newenham, is noticed separately.
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Ann. Register, 1814; Beresford Corresp.; Irish Parl. Register; Plowden's Historical Review; Barrington's Historic Anecdotes, ii. 89; Addit. MSS. 33118, 33119*; Froude's English in Ireland; Lecky's Hist. of England; Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. viii.]