He spent his life as a partner in one of the leading grocers, importing a wide range of produce including tea, coffee, sugar and spices.
Abram was born at Mount Bures in Essex in 1736, the son of Thomas Newman of Mount Hall in the same parish and his wife, Anne, the daughter of Hugh Constable of Bures St Mary.
Through his father, Abram was a descendant of Colonel Richard Newman, who assisted King Charles II in his flight from the Battle of Worcester.
Newman retired shortly afterwards and followed him to the grave on 8 March 1799 at his house in Fenchurch Street.
After the collapse of the crypt there, their monument was to be seen in the church of St Olave Hart Street, London until it suffered bomb damage in May 1941[4] during the Second World War.