His mother was Rose, daughter of Henry Williamson (a native of Salford and the rector of Conington, Cambridgeshire) and granddaughter of Thomas Sparke, one of the puritan divines at the Hampton Court conference in 1604.
In May 1644 Henry was admitted to St John's College, Cambridge,[1] but the English Civil War interrupted his studies, which were resumed on 10 May 1645.
He was destined for Alvanley Chapel, in the parish of Frodsham, Cheshire; but in October 1648 he received a unanimous call to the perpetual curacy of St Luke's Church, Goostrey, Cheshire, through the interest of his wife's cousin, Henry Manwaring of Kermincham, in whose house he subsequently lived.
He began his duties at Goostrey on 23 November 1648, but Manwaring's interest soon obtained for him the rectory of Gawsworth, Cheshire, to which he moved on 8 April 1650.
In October 1653 he joined Adam Martindale in the establishment of a clerical union for Cheshire on the model of Richard Baxter's Worcestershire agreement.
His presbyterianism was not of a severe type; and he entered warmly into the abortive proposals for an accommodation with independents formulated at Manchester on 13 July 1659.
Newcome was deeply involved in the preparations for a royalist rising (5 August 1659) under George Booth, 1st Baron Delamer.
His thanksgiving sermon (24 May) produced a great impression; it was published with the title Usurpation Defeated and David Restored.
The new fellows all had other preferments, so Newcome continued to preach as their deputy; his last sermon in the collegiate church was on 31 August 1662, the Sunday after the coming into force of the Uniformity Act.
He remained in Manchester till the Five Mile Act 1665 came into force (25 March 1666), and then removed to Ellenbrook, in Worsley parish, Lancashire.
In June 1670 he visited Dublin, and received a call (25 July) to succeed Edward Baynes at Wine Tavern Street meeting house, which he declined.
In February 1677 he was offered a chaplaincy to the widowed Countess of Donegall; he stayed five weeks at her house in London, but declined the situation.
He died at Manchester on 17 September 1695, and was buried three days later near the pulpit in his chapel, Chorlton preaching the funeral sermon.
His portrait, finished 15 Sept, 1658 by "Mr. Cunney," was engraved by R. White, and again by John Bull (1825); Baker has a poor woodcut from it, The original was at the Lancashire Independent College, Whalley Range, near Manchester.
He married, on 6 July 1648, Elizabeth (1626–1700), daughter of Peter Manwaring (d. 24 Nov. 1654) of Smallwood, Cheshire, by whom he had five children: Newcome's eldest son, Henry (1650–1713), was born at Gawsworth rectory on 28 May 1650.
[3] Newcome's major work is his Diary (begun 10 July 1646), of which a portion (30 Sept. 1661 – 29 Sept. 1663) was edited (1849) by Thomas Heywood for the Chetham Society.
It has none of the graphic power of the contemporary Life of Adam Martindale, and is very introspective, but gives a clear picture of the writer in his much-tried sensitiveness and his unascetic puritanism.