Francis William Newman was born at 17 Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square, on 27th June, 1805. His father was a London banker. Rev. T. Mozley, in his _Reminiscences of Oriel_, says he was partner in the firm of "Ramsbottom, Newman, Ramsbottom & Co., 72 Lombard Street, which appears in the lists of London bankers from 1807 to 1816 inclusive." He tells us that the family of "Newman" (or, as it was originally spelt, "Newmann") was of Dutch extraction. The father of Francis Newman had great schemes for making England "independent of foreign timber by planking all our waste lands." In 1800 John Newman married Jemima Fourdrinier, and in the year 1801 John Henry, the future Cardinal, was born. The latter and the subject of our memoir were in effect the two sheaves before whom all the rest bowed down. There were four other children: Charles Robert, Harriette Elizabeth, Jemima Charlotte, and Mary Sophia. [Illustration: SEALE'S COFFEE HOUSE, OXFORD (NOW DEMOLISHED) Done from an old drawing in the year when Francis Newman and John Henry Newman stayed there with Blanco White.] John Henry and Francis went to a school at Ealing (of which Dr. Nicholas was head-master), then, as Mr. Mozley says, considered the best preparatory school in the country. There were three hundred boys there at that time, but none were so brilliant or showed so much talent as the two Newmans. One after the other they rose to the top of the school. Frank was captain in 1821. There was some talk of removing John Henry after he had spent some years there, but he himself begged to be allowed to remain a little longer. Miss Anne Mozley, in her _Life and Correspondence of John Henry Newman_, quotes Dr. Nicholas as having said, "No boy had run through the school from bottom to top as rapidly as John Newman." He was eight and a half years at Ealing; yet during the whole of that time, it is reported that his school-fellows declared they had hardly ever seen him play in any game, though at that time games did not occupy the prominent place in the curriculum of schools that now they do in our day. It was not until his last half-year that one of the greatest spiritual influences of his life began. It was one of those seemingly curious chances which sometimes change a man's, or a woman's, whole outlook; and beginning, as it seems at the time, quite casually, quite unconsciously, lead not only the one chiefly concerned, but others, far afield into absolutely new environments. Quite, as it seems, by chance, the destiny of a lifetime approaches through the conventional door of everyday life--steals up, lays the hand that none can resist on the handle of some door which opens of itself into a new, a wider world. Before one is aware of it, perhaps, one's feet have crossed the threshold into the Land of the New Outlook, and "old things are passed away."