Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman

e greatest. It is the crucible in which the gold and dross of many generations of his ancestors ar

s forbears) is often a strange contradiction. Unable to understand some disability which spoils an otherwise fine personality, one looks back and there is the explanation. One's finger rests on the raison d'être of this disabilit

, are sometimes an undesirable inheritance. "Mental derangement in one generation is sometimes

k, which from generation to generation should act as a vade mecum-showing what failings must be fought at all costs, and what connectio

annot fail to be of special interest. And those of the subject of this memoir contain among their numb

*

dgeshire, who originally came from Holland-the name having been formerly spelt "Newmann." Thus it will be seen,

ation: J

INAL NEWMAN AN

. BY KIND PERMISSION

en 3 hearts gules. John Newman, the father of Francis Newman, was partner in the banking house of Ramsbottom, Newman and Co. He married Jemima Fourdrinier, 29th Oct., 1799, at St. Mar

Charles Robert was the second son; and Francis William, the third son, was born 27th June, 1805. Harriette Elizabeth was

andy. He was made Admiral of France in later life, and crested Viscount. ARMS: per bend argent and sable, two anchors, the upper one reversed, counterchanged. His son was also Henri Fourdrinier. I

until 1685, when the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place. But at whatever date he actually went, his reasons for going were certainly no small ones. For more than a hundred years the Huguenots-and the Fourdriniers were noted Huguenots-had found France more and more an impossible country to live in. Persecutions, massacres, torturings pursued them relentlessly. Thousands of French Huguenots emigrated to England, Holland, and Germany. And great was the loss which their emigrati

: I quote from a copy I

ca, N.S. III, 385.-Ped

ee, Vicar of All Saints

the birth of Paul Four

. Biography there oc

no mention at all is

a, amongst the record o

clear to what branch of

out, he and Paul Fourdr

tainly, in October, 172

ok place, as far as one

leau died in 1766, and w

ds with regard to the Gr

led

rs and Grolleaus were in some way connected, either in friendship or relationship. First, we find them resident at Caen: later, at Groningen; and then again, later

s. By profession he was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations. I believe there are portraits extant engraved by him of Ca

ter Fourdrinier who accompanied Paul to England in 1720. Other authorities, again, attribute the engravings I have just mentioned as having been the work of Paul Fourd

the records show that both Henry and his wife were buried in St. Mary Woolnoth. And now we come to the direct ancestors of Francis Newman, for Henry Fourdrinier and Jemima White, his wife, were the parents of Jemima,

*

ere engraved by "old Rooker, old Fourdrinier, and others," thus seemi

oth he and his brother Sealey (born 1747, and married Harriett, daughter of James Pownall, of Wilmslow) gave up their time almost entirely to the invention of paper machinery. This invention was finished in 18O7, [Footnote: Dict. Nat. Biog. Vol. X

ankruptcy to the unfortunate inventors. Then, in 1814, the Emperor Alexander of Russia promised to pay them ￡700 per a

tive force and power. Where they made paper and spent their whole energies in inventing machines for making it quicker, Francis Newman wrote on it-used it as a medium for spreading far and wide his own splendid aims and purposes for the betterment of existing social conditions. Before all things, Newman was a Social Reformer. There was no possible doubt that, as far as

efer to be on the weaker side, and whose sword