2 CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL 



first of his year at the R.M.A., Woolwich ; he served with 

 the Royal Artillery in the Crimea and retired with the 

 rank of Major-General. The youngest son, Edward, 

 K.C.M.G. (1832-97), was at one time Colonial Secretary 

 of Mauritius and subsequently Colonial Secretary and 

 Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. 



Alfred was the fifth son of William Newton of 

 Elveden. In 1828 Mr. Newton with his wife, seven 

 children and a suitable retinue of nurses and couriers, 

 drove in the leisurely fashion of those days from Elveden 

 to Pisa in the family chariot. On their way back through 

 Switzerland in the following year the family halted for 

 a time at Geneva, where Alfred was born on June 11, 

 1829, at a house, " Les Delices," * which was at that 

 time far beyond the limits of the town, but has now 

 become surrounded by the growing suburbs of Geneva. 

 In the next year they returned to Elveden, which 

 continued to be the family home until after the death of 

 Mr. Newton more than thirty years later. 



The Elveden Hall of those days was like many other 

 East Anglian country houses, a plain Georgian mansion 

 of brick, built about 1770 by Admiral Augustus Keppel, 

 first and last Viscount Keppel of Elveden, upon whose 

 death, in 1786, it passed to his nephew, the Earl of 

 Albemarle. It is probable that there had never been an 

 earlier house at Elveden, although the district had been 

 renowned for centuries as one of the finest sporting 

 countries in England. King James I. after visiting 

 Newmarket in 1605, proceeded to Thetford, where he 

 stayed for some time and was greatly struck by the 



* In Morley's " Voltaire " (chap, iv.) it is stated that Voltaire " made him- 

 self a hermitage for the summer, called the Delices, a short distance from 

 the spot where the Arve falls into the Rhone." This is without doubt the 

 house in which Alfred Newton was born. One of his nephews writes : 

 " The explanation why none of us should ever have heard about this before 

 is that our elders considered Voltaire a horrible person whose name should 

 never be mentioned by respectable people." 



