While a schoolboy at Ealing School, Newman participated enthusiastically in school life, acting in Latin plays, winning prizes for speeches, taking part in debates, learning to play the violin, writing musical compositions, leading a boys’ society, and editing six different school magazines. He also enjoyed reading the eighteenth-century essayists and poets, and attempted to imitate their style in poems, satires and historical romances; and he devoured the novels of Walter Scott. By contrast, he had no interest in outdoor or sporting activities other than walking and riding.