[5] At the end of the 1885 season, Newton was a member of an amateur side raised by the Devon cricketer Edward Sanders that played matches in North America, with two of the games later being designated as first-class.

One of the bigger matches of the tour was at Melbourne Cricket Ground against an Australian XI which contained 10 Test players: Vernon's XI won by an innings and Newton, one of only three non-Test players in his team, made 77, starting a revival in his team's single innings after the first six wickets had fallen for 51 runs to a final total of 292.

From 1891, Somerset resumed first-class cricket status, and Newton played in the first County Championship match involving the team, against Middlesex at Lord's.

[8] In these early days of Somerset's first-class cricket, the county did not lack capable amateur wicket-keepers, and Newton shared the position with the Rev.

[11] Newton's wicket-keeping in this period was also of high quality: against Middlesex at Lord's in 1901, he dismissed nine batsmen in the match, with six catches and three stumpings, to set a Somerset record for first-class cricket that has been equalled but not surpassed in the 109 years since.

His final match for the county ended just three days before the outbreak of World War I; according to Wisden, Newton "showed remarkable form behind the wickets for a man approaching the age of fifty-two".