Early Life :

Education & Career :

Educated at Liverpool College. Newton went to Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1879. 4 Literae Humaniores, 1883. He would be the College's oldest casualty of the war.

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Natural causes is attributed those deaths due to causes that were not directly associated with the war. Included in this are wartime deaths resulting from, for example, theSpanish Influenza pandemic and its associated pneumonia problems and other attributions such as age and exhaustion. It also groups those who through Post Traumatic Stress committed suicide as a result of their experiences.

Detail :

Newton died in February 1915 aged 54, of illness contracted while on active service. His death was recorded in the Chester Chronicle 20th February, 1915: "HESWALL. OFFICER'S DEATH.- The death occurred on Tuesday, at Fairholme, Heswall, of Major William John Newton, of the 4th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment (Territorials). At the outbreak of the war he responded to the duties when his battalion was mobilised, and at the expressed wish of the authorities he was given charge of the recruiting arrangements at Birkenhead. His duties entailed very heavy work, and towards the end of November his health completely broke down, and never recovered. The deceased offcier, who was about 51 years of age, leaves a widow but no children."

The detail of his funeral was recorded in the Liverpool Daily Post 20th February 1915, adding further detail: "...Major Newton, who had been in the Volunteers and Territorials since 1889, was head of the firm of Messrs. James Newton and Co., shipowners and ships' chandlers, of Nova Scotia, Liverpool." It goes on "When a resident of Birkenhead Major Newton took a great interest in municipal life, and contested Grange Ward in the Conservative interest with the late Mr. Charles Gatehouse against the late Alderman Thomas Cook and Mr. G. Caradoc Rees. He was a prominent Freemason, and was P.M. of Rock Lodge No. 1289..."

His will left money to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Aged Mariners' Home at Egremont and the Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Society.

Masonic :

Law Student at the time of initiation in 1892, into Rock Lodge. Past Master

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley