near Bedworth, Warwickshire, and some years before his death cut a canal through his collieries and woods to join the Coventry canal. He was an active promoter of the Coventry, the Oxford, and Grand Junction canals, and of the turnpike road from Coventry to Leicester. He built a poorhouse and school for Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, the parish in which his Arbury estates were situated. He rebuilt Arbury House in the ‘Gothic’ style, on the site of an ancient priory. There is a description of the house in William Smith's ‘County of Warwick’ (p. 149). He was also the owner of the manor of Harefield, Middlesex, and about 1743 resided at Harefield Place. In 1760, having fixed his principal residence at Arbury, he sold Harefield Place to John Truesdale, retaining the manor and his other estates in Harefield. In 1786 Newdigate built a house called Harefield Lodge, about a mile from Uxbridge (Lysons, County of Middlesex, pp. 107, 109, 111; Walford, Greater London, i. 245).
During a tour early in life in France and Italy Newdigate made sketches of ancient buildings, filling two folio volumes preserved in his library at Arbury. He collected ancient marbles, casts of statues, and also vases, some of which were engraved by Piranesi. He purchased for 1,800l. two marble candelabra found in Hadrian's Villa, but a good deal restored (Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, pp. 593, 594). These he presented to the Radcliffe Library, Oxford. He gave to University College, Oxford, a chimney-piece for the hall, and in December 1805 presented to the university 2,000l. for the purpose of removing the Arundell collection into the Radcliffe Library, a plan carried out by Flaxman. He also gave 1,000l. in the funds, partly for a prize for English verse, and partly towards the improvement of the lodgings of the master of University College. The prize, well known as the ‘Newdigate,’ is of the annual value of twenty-one guineas, and is confined to undergraduates. It was first awarded in 1806, and in accordance with Newdigate's desire the competing compositions were originally restricted to fifty lines and to some subject connected with the history of ancient sculpture, painting, or architecture: the poems were not to contain any compliment to Newdigate himself.
Newdigate died at his seat at Arbury, after a few days' illness, on 23 Nov. 1806, in his eighty-seventh year. He was buried in the family vault at Harefield parish church, where there is a tablet to his memory (Walford, Greater London, i. 248). Newdigate is described by his friend Archdeacon Churton as an intelligent and polished gentleman of the old school. A portrait of him was painted for University College, Oxford, by Kirkby, and he was also painted at the age of seventy-three by Romney. He was a student of theology and the author of an unpublished dissertation on Hannibal's march over the Alps (cf. Gent. Mag. 1807, pt. ii. p. 634).
Newdigate married, first, in 1743, Sophia, daughter of Edward Conyers of Copped Hall, Essex; secondly, in 1776, Hester, daughter of Edward Mundy of Shipley, Derbyshire. He died without leaving any children, and his Harefield estates passed to the great-grandson of his uncle, Francis Newdigate, viz. Charles Newdigate Parker, who assumed the surname of Newdegate and re-purchased Harefield Place, and whose son, Charles Newdigate Newdegate, is separately noticed. A life interest in the Warwickshire estates was bequeathed to Francis Parker Newdigate of Kirk Hallam, Derbyshire.
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Welch's Alumni Westmonast.; Gent. Mag. 1806, pt. ii. pp. 1173–4, 1807 pt. ii. pp. 633–5, and 705 f.; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xxiii. 115–17; authorities cited above.]
NEWELL, EDWARD JOHN (1771–1798), Irish informer, of Scottish parentage, was born on 29 June 1771, at Downpatrick. He tells us that he ran away from home when he was seventeen and became a sailor, making a short voyage to Cadiz. In a year he returned home, and after serving as apprentice to a painter and glazier, followed the trade of a glass-stainer for two years, but failed in attempts to start business in Dublin and Limerick. Early in 1796 he went to Belfast, and practised the profession of portrait-painting in miniature. There he joined the United Irishmen, and worked for the cause for thirteen months, neglecting his business in his enthusiasm. He was, however, distrusted by some of the leaders, and in revenge, as he admits, became an informer. Early in 1797 he was taken to Edward Cooke [q. v.], under-secretary of state for Ireland, and gave him a great deal of information, most of which he avowedly invented, although he charges the under-secretary with adding names to the list of innocent people which he himself supplied. Cooke sent him to Newry, where General Gerard Lake [q. v.] was then stationed, directing the latter to treat him well and follow Newell's advice. He was lavishly supplied with money, all of which he confesses to have spent in debauchery. When examined before a secret committee of the Irish House of Commons, on 3 May 1797, he was ‘with
