Richard Newman Harding Newman (1756 or 1757 – 1808), born Richard Newman Harding, was an English landowner and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who was the absentee landlord of a Jamaican slave plantation. He was considered a renowned huntsman and was the subject of a portrait by George Romney.

Life and family

Harding Newman was born in 1756 or 1757, the oldest son of Benjamin Harding and his wife Sarah (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Newman). The family lived at Hacton House close to

Hornchurch Hornchurch is a suburban town in East London, England, and part of the London Borough of Havering. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross. It comprises a number of shopping streets and a large residential area. It historically formed ...

in Essex, but he was baptised at Croydon in

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

in May 1757.Richard Newman Harding Newman
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21.Portrait of Richard Newman Harding (1756–1808), full length, in a pink coat and breeches, with a dog in a wooded landscape his father owned
Live auction 1537,

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

, 2014. Retrieved 2023-01-21. Benjamin Harding owned of land in Hanover Parish on Jamaica, made up of two plantations at Blue Hole and Newman Hall which produced sugar, rum and

molasses Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...

. Harding Newman inherited a third-share in the estates alongside his brothers John and Benjamin, following their father's death in 1766. The estates were valued at over £12,000, with more than £10,000 of that value the 198 enslaved people owned by the plantations.Benjamin Harding
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21.Blue Hole
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21.Newman Hall
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21. He retained ownership of the Blue Hole estate with John until his death. One of Harding Newman's sisters, Sarah Harding, married Robert Charles Dallas, a Jamaican-born poet and writer. Their son was the writer and clergyman Alexander Dallas.Watt J (2004
Dallas, Robert Charles
'' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (online). Retrieved 2023-01-21. In 1766, Harding Newman's maternal grandfather Richard Newman died, leaving property in Essex, including land at West Ham Abbey, to him. As a condition of the will he added the surname Newman to his name in 1783,Bennett E (2015
Jane Austen & the Rice Portrait - Who were the Harding Newmans? Part One - Thomas Harding Newman and his antecedents
Portraits of Jane Austen, 3 December 2015. Retrieved 2023-01-21. although it appears that in later life he reverted to Harding as his primary surname. He owned other property in the county, including at Romford, and in 1781 purchased the manor of Nelmes near to Hornchurch.Powell WR ed. (1978) Hornchurch: Manors, in ''A History of the County of Essex: Volume 7'', pp. 31-39. London: Victoria County History.
Available online
at British History Online. Retrieved 2023-01-21.) Harding Newman married twice. He married his first wife Harriet Schütz at Westminster in 1776 aged 17. Harriet was the daughter of Francis Schütz of

Gillingham Hall Gillingham Hall is a Jacobean manor house in the village of Gillingham, Norfolk, England. It is a Grade II* Listed Building. The house has 10-bedrooms and was built in the early 16th century. It was altered and enlarged in the 18th and 19th cent ...

in Norfolk, the third-cousin of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The marriage produced two surviving sons, Thomas Harding Newman and Benjamin Newman Harding. Following Harriet's death Harding Newman married his second wife, Rosamond Bradish, in 1806; the marriage produce a further two children before his death two years later. A renowned huntsman and considered a fine sportsman, Harding Newman was, according to obituaries, well known in "agricultural circles"Provincial Occurrences, '' The Monthly Magazine'', vol. xxvii, February 1809, p. 103.
Available online
at Google Books. Retrieved 2023-01-21.)Monthly Obituary, ''The London Review and Literary Journal'', February 1809, p. 161.
Available online
at Google Books. Retrieved 2023-01-23.) and was considered a philanthropist. He served as a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

Provincial Occurrences, '' The Monthly Magazine'', vol. xxvi, December 1808, p. 607.
Available online
at Google Books. Retrieved 2023-01-21.) and was commissioned in the Loyal Havering Volunteer Cavalry, serving as the commanding officer of the troop, an

Essex Yeomanry The Essex Yeomanry was a Reserve unit of the British Army that originated in 1797 as local Yeomanry Cavalry Troops in Essex. Reformed after the experience gained in the Second Boer War, it saw active service as cavalry in World War I and as ar ...

unit of provisional cavalry.''London Gazette'', 1801, p. 1016.
Available online
at Google Books. Retrieved 2023-01-21.)East and West Essex Provisional Cavalry 1797–1828
Essex Military History. Retrieved 2023-01-21. As well as his estates in Essex, he had inherited land at Black Callerton in Northumberland and at Great Clacton in Essex through the Schütz family. Harding Newman died at

Tempsford Tempsford is a village and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of the county of Bedfordshire, England, about east north-east of the county town of Bedford. The village is split by the A1 Great North Road and is located just befo ...

in Bedfordshire in 1808 aged 51. His son, Thomas, inherited his Essex estates as well as the slave estates in Jamaica; when he remarried in 1818 Thomas' second wife, Eliza Hall, may have received

The Rice portrait The Rice portrait is believed by the owners and others to be of Jane Austen and painted by Ozias Humphry in 1788 or 1789 when Austen was 13. Experts at the National Portrait Gallery (and elsewhere) have disputed this, suggesting that the painting ...

, possibly of a young

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

, as a wedding present.The Rice Portrait
Thomas Harding Newman, Cultural Legacy Details, Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21. Nelmes House was later owned by Thomas' son, also named Thomas, who was a clergyman and fellow of

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the s ...

.Thomas Harding Newman
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21.How Nelmes' glory days ended with wrecking ball
'' Romford Recorder'', 14 October 2017. Retrieved 2023-01-21. Harding Newman's other son Benjamin served in the British Army, rising to the rank of

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

.Benjamin Newman Harding
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London. Retrieved 2023-01-21.

Portrait

In around 1770 or 1771, Harding Newman was the subject of a portrait by George Romney at a time when the artist was coming to prominence as one of the leading portrait artists in London. It depicts Harding Newman with a hunting dog and dressed in pink. The painting remained in the family until 1890 and was later owned by

Alfred de Rothschild Alfred Charles ''Freiherr'' de Rothschild, CVO (20 July 1842 – 31 January 1918), was the second son of Lionel ''Freiherr'' de Rothschild and Charlotte ''Freifrau'' von Rothschild of the Rothschild family. Education As a young man, Alfred a ...

and then by

Michael Arthur Bass Michael Arthur Bass, 1st Baron Burton, KCVO (12 November 1837 – 1 February 1909), known as Sir Michael Arthur Bass, 1st Baronet, from 1882 to 1886, was a British brewer, Liberal politician and philanthropist. He sat in the House of Commons ...

. It was sold in 2014 at

for £194,500 and is considered "a characteristic work of the period" which displays "bravura brushwork hichis combined with passages of masterfully subtle observation". The picture has sometimes been called ''The Pink Boy'', drawing comparisons to Thomas Gainsborough's portrait ''

The Blue Boy ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

''. Whilst Bass owned the portrait it was hung at Chesterfield House in

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world. ...

, close to where ''The Blue Boy'' was hung at Grosvenor House.

Cricket

Harding Newman is known to have played

between 1773 and 1793. He played in 19 matches which are now considered to have first-class cricket status, playing his first known matches in 1773 for a Kent side against one from

. Most of his known cricket was played after 1785.Richard Newman
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2023-01-21. Richard Newman

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2023-01-21. He played matches for the White Conduit Club and then for Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) following its foundation in 1787, and for Hornchurch Cricket Club and early Essex sides. He was an early member of MCC and scored the first half century at Lord's Old Ground while playing for an Essex XI in the ground's first known match in 1787.Middlesex v Essex
Scorecard, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2023-01-21. Harding Newman played 11 first-class matches in 1793, the final year in which he appears on scorecards. His final match was for a side he organised himself against one put together by Richard Leigh, played at

Navestock Side Navestock Side is a hamlet near the A128 road, in the Navestock civil parish of the Brentwood District, in the county of Essex, England. It is about three miles from the town of Brentwood. It has a small country house called Abbotswick Abbotsw ...

in Essex.Harragan, ''op. cit.'' p. 5. This is the only match known to have been played on the ground at Navestock which has been awarded first-class status.The Green, Navestock Side
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2023-01-21.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Newman, Richard English cricketers Essex cricketers Kent cricketers English cricketers of 1701 to 1786 Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers White Conduit Club cricketers English cricketers of 1787 to 1825 Hornchurch Cricket Club cricketers Place of birth missing