Roger Newdigate
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
politician and collector of antiquities.
He was born in Arbury, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
, the son of Sir Richard Newdigate, 3rd Baronet (who died in 1727) and inherited the title 5th Baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
and the estates of Arbury and of Harefield
Harefield
Harefield is a village in the London Borough of Hillingdon in northwest London, England. It is situated on top of a hill, northwest of Charing Cross, near the Greater London boundary with Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the north...
in Middlesex
Middlesex
Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
on the early death of his brother in 1734. He was educated at Westminster School
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and University College, Oxford
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
, and contributed greatly to the university throughout the remainder of his life. He is most remembered as the founder of the Newdigate Prize
Newdigate prize
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...
in 1805 and as a collector of antiques, a number of which he donated to the University. The prize for poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
helped make the names of many illustrious writers.
From 1742 until 1747, he served as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Middlesex
Middlesex (UK Parliament constituency)
Middlesex is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885....
, and in 1751, he began a 30-year tenure as an MP for Oxford University
Oxford University (UK Parliament constituency)
Oxford University was a university constituency electing two members to the British House of Commons, from 1603 to 1950.-Boundaries, Electorate and Electoral System:...
.
He married, firstly Sophia Conyers in 1743, and secondly Hesther Margaret Munday in 1776. Both marriages were childless.
He lavished attention on the Elizabethan Arbury Hall
Arbury Hall
Arbury Hall is a Grade I listed country house in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, and is the ancestral home of the Newdigate family, later the Newdigate-Newdegate and Fitzroy-Newdegate families....
which he rebuilt over a period of thirty years in splendid Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
Renaissance style, engaging the services of the architect Henry Couchman
Henry Couchman
Henry Couchman of Balsall Temple, Warwickshire, an 18th century architect and landscape gardener, designed the Old Draper’s Hall, Coventry and helped complete Arbury Hall, Warwickshire, for Sir Roger Newdigate, including designing the magnificent saloon.-Autobiography:Henry Couchman left the...
.
He is immortalised in fiction in George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
's Scenes of Clerical Life
Scenes of Clerical Life
Scenes of Clerical Life is the title under which George Eliot's first published fictional work, a collection of three short stories, was released in book form, and the first of her works to be released under her famous pseudonym...
, where he appears as Sir Christopher Cheverel in Mr Gilfil's Love Story.