‘He had a great capacity for love and friendship.’
Brought to book: Maggie Waldman on Henry Stanley Newman, the longest-serving editor of the Friend
Maggie Waldman
‘The biographies of good men are full of instruction for us if we can read in them the lessons that shall make our own lives godly.’ So said Henry Stanley Newman in 1886. He is best remembered today as the longest-serving editor of the Friend, holding the position for twenty years between 1891-1912.
Despite his good works, both in Herefordshire where he resided and further afield, Newman’s modesty during his lifetime means he isn’t a well-known figure in Victorian history. I decided his was a life worth celebrating more widely. On the 150th anniversary of Orphans Press, a printing company in Leominster that he founded, we published A Friend In Deed: The Life of Henry Stanley Newman.
I first came across Henry Stanley Newman in 2012, when I was volunteering at the Leominster Museum. It was hosting an exhibition on the history of Orphans Press, a local printing and publishing company established in 1873 to provide training and employment for orphaned children. There were few visitors to the museum that morning, so I browsed the pile of books the company had produced over the previous 140 years. A little blue book entitled The Story of the Orphan Homes caught my attention. There was no author’s name on the cover, nor on the title page, but it was written in a singular and engaging voice by someone who really knew and cared deeply about the subject. It was incredibly revealing, not only about the time and place but also about the man who, I later discovered, had written it – Henry Stanley Newman, the founder.
The picture of Henry Stanley Newman in the exhibition showed a white-haired and bearded man in a frock coat, the epitome of a Victorian philanthropist. But the book and annual reports revealed surprisingly modern attitudes towards education and childcare. Newman totally rejected corporal punishment, large impersonal institutions, and the separation and stigmatisation of orphaned children. Newman was determined to make the Leominster Orphan Homes a loving, homely and healthy environment, so that the children should have a good education and secure skilled employment. I was intrigued, and tried to find out a bit more about him, without much success.
It wasn’t until 2016 that I caught up with him again. The Quaker Family History Society (QFHS) held a meeting in Leominster that April, and asked the museum to provide speakers on the history of Quakers in the town. Helen Bowden of Orphans Press spoke on the Leominster Orphan Homes, local historian Peter Holliday spoke about the Southall, Newman and Neild families, and I was asked to say something about the Leominster Adult or First Day Schools. There wasn’t much information locally, but it was soon apparent that, like so much aimed at improving social and educational opportunities in the town, this was yet another Newman project. Helen and I agreed that someone should try to bring all the information about Henry Stanley Newman together and make it more widely available. Over coffee a few weeks later, it was clear that we would have to be that ‘someone’ and, since Helen was working full-time, I offered to list what information there was and identify sources.
I suppose the easiest thing would have been to edit the papers given at the QFHS that day into a pamphlet. But we both had a feeling that Henry Stanley Newman warranted something more substantial. Although the Orphan Homes closed many years ago, and Newman’s books are long out of print, he had clearly made a significant contribution to civic life and wellbeing in Leominster in the second half of the nineteenth century. But as I started searching archives and compiling a list of documents it became clear he had also made a major contribution to the Society of Friends, nationally and internationally.
Newman was instrumental in the establishment of the Friends Foreign Mission Association and served as its secretary until his death, visiting missions in India, Africa, Palestine and the USA. He was actively involved in the campaign to end slavery in East Africa. He travelled across Britain speaking at meetings in support of temperance and of changes to the licensing laws. He became editor of the Friend when it changed from a monthly to weekly publication. He taught the men’s class at Leominster Adult School for fifty years, addressing conferences on adult education, organising university extension lectures, and writing and publishing books specifically designed for adult schools. All this while serving as clerk to his Meeting and being active in ministry. At the same time he ran a respected family grocery business, providing a loving and financially-secure home for his family of six children, and had a long and happy marriage to Mary Anna Pumphrey, who shared all his interests.
Helen and I were grateful to be the recipients of the QFHS Margaret Bennett Small Research Award in 2017 as the research widened from Herefordshire, to London and the Society of Friends Library, and the copying of documents held in the USA. Although none of his diaries and few personal letters have survived, Newman revealed himself, through his actions and the assessment of others, to be sincere, devout, open and honest, and certain in his faith. He had a great capacity for love and friendship. He was also driven, disciplined, and at times impatient, naive and culturally insensitive. He had periods of doubt and uncertainty about his own capabilities but was, essentially, optimistic and joyful. He was a born communicator, keen to share his own sense of wonder in the world, his pleasure in the company of children, and his joy in his faith and trust that God would provide.
I never intended to write a book but, as I found out more about him, it seemed clear that his was a life worth celebrating. What distinguishes Henry Stanley Newman, at least for me, is how much he gave of himself to others: time, thought, consideration and respect, as well as financial and practical help. A visionary, he was also a ‘doer’, someone who, when faced with a problem, worked out how to tackle it and rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. He was a conciliator and tried to bridge the growing divide between older and younger, conservative and evangelical, evangelical and liberal within the Society of Friends in the 1890s. He sought to balance his duty to family, his community and his faith by doing the equivalent of three full-time jobs, as grocer, charity administrator and missionary.
His is an example of an ordinary life extraordinarily well-lived. He had no particular talent or gift that marked him out as someone likely to succeed or become famous, but, in his quiet, unshowy, kindly and persistent way, he achieved more than many who are better known. He deserves to be better remembered.
Maggie launched the book at Almeley Wootton Meeting House.
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