Henry Newman was born in Liverpool in 1837, the only son of Josiah Newman and Harriet Wood. The family moved many times trying to establish a business – first to Deptford and then New Cross in London, and to Cirencester in 1842, before settling in Leominster where they began to prosper. Henry was educated at Bootham School in York and went to work at his father’s grocery business in 1858.

Henry married Mary Ann Pumphry in 1863 and after his marriage he adopted the name Stanley to distinguish himself from his uncle Henry Newman. The family lived above the shop in Broad Street and there raised a family of six children, two of whom died of consumption in their late teens. When their oldest son Josiah married and took over the grocery business in 1891, Newman, his wife, and youngest daughter Caroline moved to Buckfield, the house his father had built near Barons Cross. His oldest daughter Harriet became superintendent of the Greenwood Industrial School, Halstead. His second son George Newman trained as a doctor, becoming the first Chief Medical Officer to the Ministry of Health.

Henry Stanley was an active Quaker; he was clerk of his Monthly Meeting for over twenty years. He was recorded as a minister in 1869 and took a large part in the series of Tent (or Mission) meetings which led to the rapid growth of Quakerism in the district. He was also much involved in mission world-wide as well as locally and was secretary for many years of the Friends Foreign Mission Association. He attended meetings in London even though this meant a five hour train journey from Leominster. He also travelled farther afield and visited missions in India in 1880-1881 and Pemba in 1897. From 1888 to 1890 he travelled in America.

Henry was very involved with local causes. He was one of the founders of Leominster Adult School and was leader of the Leominster Men’s School for 54 years. In 1869 he founded the Leominster Orphan Homes in Ryelands Road, one for boys and one for girls, with a total capacity for about 40 orphans under the age of ten. In 1873 Henry established the Orphans Printing Press in Leominster with three aims – to generate money to support the Orphan Homes, to provide an industrial training for at least some of the orphans in its care and to publish materials which would act as a force for good. The children worked for three hours each morning, continuing their lessons in the afternoon. By 1874 Henry noted that ‘there seems to be a more healthy tone about them, now they feel they are earning their own bread and learning a useful trade’. When Parliament prohibited the employment of children several of the orphans were employed by the printing press when they were old enough.

He was made a County Magistrate in 1893, the same year his son Josiah left Leominster and Newman bought back the grocery business and relaunched it as Newman and Co with fellow Quaker Hubert Reynolds.

In the later part of his life Henry Stanley Newman was an enthusiastic and energetic editor of the Quaker newspaper The Friend. He took up the post when he retired from business. He changed the journal from a monthly to a weekly publication and oversaw its printing in Leominster at the Orphans Printing Press.

When his wife suffered a paralytic stroke in 1904, Newman reduced his commitments to spend more time with her, and her death in 1908 was a severe blow.

He died, still editor of The Friend, in Leominster on 23rd October 1912 aged 75.

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