Charles Norris-Newman
Charles Norris-Newman | |
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Born | Special correspondent | 22 August 1852
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Children | 1 |
Charles Louis Marie William Norris-Newman (22 August 1852 – May 1920) was a British journalist, adventurer and intelligence officer with the Russian Navy. He was present at the 1870–1871 Siege of Paris and was in Spain during the Third Carlist War (from 1872) and in Egypt with General Charles George Gordon.
Norris-Newman was in Southern Africa from 1877 and was the only newspaper correspondent with the British forces during the invasion of
Norris-Newman afterwards spent time in East Asia and in 1900, having fled creditors in China, married a former prostitute in Japan. His wife's former occupation excluded Norris-Newman from polite society. Norris-Newman was abusive to his wife and child, who died young, and she divorced him in 1908. From 1902 Norris-Newman worked for the Imperial Russian Navy first as an English teacher and then in publishing a journal in the Far East, eventually being granted the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was accused by George Ernest Morrison, political adviser to the Chinese Republic, of propaganda against the Japanese during the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. In later life he worked for newspapers in China.
Early life and career
Norris-Newman was born on 22 August 1852 at
Anglo-Zulu War
Norris-Newman arrived in Southern Africa in 1877.
Norris-Newman accompanied Lord Chelmsford's principal force, the Centre Column. He attached himself to the 3rd Regiment of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC), a black African force led by white officers and non-commissioned officers.[2] The unit's commander, Rupert la Trobe Lonsdale, gave him the nickname "Noggs", after the character Newman Noggs in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby.[7] He was the first man with the invading force to cross the Buffalo river into Zululand on 11 January, swimming his horse across at 5:00 am before the military began their crossing by pont.[8][9] Norris-Newman accompanied Chelmsford in observing the first engagement of the war, the 12 January Action at Sihayo's Kraal.[10]
Norris-Newman avoided death in the 22 January
Following the defeat the British press dispatched their best correspondents to Natal, including Melton Prior, Charles Edwin Fripp and Archibald Forbes.[14] The Standard sent F.R. MacKenzie to assist Norris-Newman.[12] Norris-Newman and Forbes returned to Isandhlwana on 20 March with a British party sent to bury some of the dead.[15] Norris-Newman also accompanied the relief expedition for the Siege of Eshowe. During the expedition he was present at the 2 April Battle of Gingindlovu. At one point in that battle he judged the fighting so desperate that he grabbed a rifle and helped, shooting at least one Zulu.[16] After the battle he and a friend, a wagon driver named Palmer, went out into the field and found a group of three dead Zulu that they thought they had killed. They took from them items of their dress and weapons as trophies.[17] Norris-Newman was the first man to enter Eshowe upon its relief, racing the correspondent of the Argus for the honour and beating him by five minutes.[18] Norris-Newman was present in the decisive final British victory of the war, the 4 July Battle of Ulundi.[19]
Norris-Newman's account of the Anglo-Zulu War, On Campaign with the British Army in the Zulu War of 1879, was published in 1880 by W. H. Allen & Co.[20] Zulu War historian Donald R. Morris regarded the book as "brisk and accurate" for the parts of the war that Norris-Newman witnessed but otherwise liable to include hearsay.[21] Norris-Newman featured in the 1979 film Zulu Dawn, portrayed by English actor Ronald Lacey as an "acidic" commentator on the invasion.[22]
Later career in Africa
Norris-Newman was still in Southern Africa when the First Boer War broke out late in 1880 between the British and the Transvaal Boers. He was determined to report the war from the Boer point of view but failed to reach their lines before the ceasefire was declared.[23] Norris-Newman remained to witness the peace negotiations and wrote With the Boers in the Transvaal about his experiences.[23][24]
By 1882 he was in Basutoland, in the wake of the Basuto Gun War, and afterwards joined the adventurer and mercenary Digby Willoughby in Madagascar.[1] Willoughby, who had also served in the Zulu War and Basutoland, was appointed general in the armies of Madagascan queen Ranavalona III which fought the French in the First Franco-Hova War (1883-1885).[25]
By 1885 Norris-Newman was back in Southern Africa, serving as town clerk and treasurer to the municipality of Aliwal North in Cape Colony.[26] He was dismissed after 18 months for embezzlement of town funds.[27] Norris-Newman was then in Zanzibar and Central Africa until 1891, reporting on military campaigns there.[1][2] His reports were published in The Times, the Pall Mall Gazette and the Daily Mail. Norris-Newman also wrote the books The Basuto and their Country and South African Stories.[1]
In the mid-1890s Norris-Newman became associated with the British South Africa Company (BSAC) which was in the process of taking over Matabeleland. By 1894 Norris-Newman was publishing the Matabeleland News and Mining Record with G.R. Cardigan.[28] He was also an agent for the Reuters news service and set up a postal service using a series of runners from Bulawayo southwards to the telegraph line that was being constructed from the Tati Goldfields.[29][30] In 1895 he published Matabeleland And How We Got it on how the BSAC acquired the territory.[31]
By 1896, when he visited England on a sightseeing and lecture tour, Norris-Newman was editor and proprietor of the Rhodesia Weekly Review.[32] During the Second Matabele War of 1896–1897 he served as staff officer to the company's acting administrator.[1] He was also chief intelligence officer to the Bulawayo Field Force and a colonial official.[2][32]
East Asia
Norris-Newman left Africa for East Asia before the turn of the century.
At the time of his marriage Norris-Newman was in financial difficulty, having fled his creditors in Shanghai. He asked Finch to request money from her father and when she refused began to subject her to physical abuse. Finch delivered their child ahead of term in September 1900, because of the abuse, and it was born with a deformity. Norris-Newman refused to pay for her care during postpartum confinement and she went to stay with her father for 5–6 months. Norris-Newman assaulted Finch again in February 1901 when Finch tried to stop him from dosing their crying and ill child with chlorodyne. In May 1902 Finch and the child left Japan for England on account of their health. Norris-Newman afterwards visited a brothel, telling them to bill his father-in-law.[33]
In 1902 Norris-Newman entered the employ of the
Norris-Newman reported as a freelance correspondent from the Russian side of the 1904-1905
Later life
Details of Norris-Newman's later life are little known as he avoided attention, partly on account of his marital issues. By 1907 Norris-Newman was working as an intelligence officer for Russia. By 1910 he was living in Tianjin where he worked for the China Critic and by 1916 was working for the Gazette in Peking.[2]
Norris-Newman's Who's who in the Far East, 1906–7 entry lists a number of decorations: "Madagascar, first class", the Order of the Dannebrog third class, the "French Medal for Valour", the Egypt Medal, the Khedive's Star, the South Africa Medal (1880) and the British South Africa Company Medal. His hobbies were noted as riding, shooting and philately and he is stated to be a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Provincial Senior Grand Warden with the freemasons.[1]
Norris-Newman's interest in philately dated from at least his time in Aliwal North and he was elected a member of the Birmingham Philatelic Society in 1896.[37][38] By 1912 he had given an album of 4,000 stamps to a C. H. Meekle to be sold. Meekle passed these stamps to Charles H. Hussman of the Columbia Supply Company in the United States but no money reached Norris-Newman. Hussman claimed the album was security for a loan he had provided. Norris-Newman launched a court case to recover the stamps, or their value which he stated as $1,500. A jury in the court of Julius Muench in March 1912 ordered Hussman to return the album or pay Norris-Newman $750.[39][40] His stamp collection was auctioned on 19 June 1913.[41]
Norris-Newman died of stomach cancer at Victoria Hospital, Tianjin in May 1920.[42][43]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Who's who in the Far East, 1906-7, June. Hongkong, China mail. 1906. p. 251.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84832-439-8.
- ISBN 978-1-4472-0223-3.
- ^ "No. 24273". The London Gazette. 7 December 1875. p. 6333.
- ISBN 978-0-8032-8455-5.
- ISBN 978-1-84468-602-5.
- ISBN 978-0-670-91474-6.
- ISBN 978-1-928211-18-1.
- ISBN 978-1-4738-1535-3.
- ISBN 978-1-78438-537-8.
- ISBN 978-1-84832-602-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84832-439-8.
- ISBN 067-1-63108-X.
- ISBN 978-1-4738-2033-3.
- ISBN 9781473815353. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ISBN 978-1-3990-1057-3.
- ISBN 978-1-84415-801-0.
- ISBN 978-0-670-91474-6.
- ISBN 978-0-3043-6725-2.
- ISBN 978-1-78158-326-5.
- ISBN 067-1-63108-X.
- ISBN 978-0-8386-3702-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-317-86846-0.
- ISBN 978-1-78901-436-5.
- ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ Office, Great Britain Colonial (1885). Transvaal: Further Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of the Transvaal & Adjacent Territories...Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty... G.E.B. Eyre & W. Spottiswoode. p. 15.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-20486-6.
- ^ "The Talk of Bristol". Bristol Mercury. 24 August 1894. p. 8.
- ^ African Research & Documentation. African Studies Association of the UK. 1984. p. 36.
- ^ Baxter, T. W.; Turner, Robert William Septimus (1966). Rhodesian Epic. H. Timmins. p. 156.
- ^ Norris-Newman, Charles L. (1895). Matabeleland And How We Got it: With Notes on the Occupation of Mashunaland, and an Account of the 1893 Campaign by the British South Africa Company, the Adjoining British Territories and Protectorates. T. Fisher Unwin.
- ^ a b African Review. African Review Publishing Company. 1896. p. 337.
- ^ a b c "Norris-Newman V. Norris-Newman". London and China Telegraph. 4 May 1908. p. 388.
- ^ "Divorce Court File: 7427. Appellant: Ethel Luke Norris-Newman. Respondent: Charles Louis..." National Archives. 1907. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
- ^ "Untitled". The Guardian. 1 May 1908. p. 4.
- ISBN 978-0-521-20486-6.
- ^ The London Philatelist. Royal Philatelic Society. 1893. p. 72.
- ^ The American Journal of Philately. Scott Stamp and Coin Company. 1896. p. 182.
- ^ "Jury Orders Return of Stamps". St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 17 October 1912. p. 11.
- ^ "Berlangt Briefmarten". Westliche Post. 16 March 1912. p. 10.
- ^ Philatelic Literature Review. American Philatelic Research Library. 2003. p. 342.
- ^ "Peking and Tientsin". London and China Telegraph. 21 June 1920. p. 435.
- ^ "Social and Personal". Straits Times. 13 May 1920. p. 6.