Now 104!

This was the newspaper article about my uncle as I mentioned yesterday. Quite an amazing man.


"Edward Newton, now 102, today enjoyed the second royal visit at the place where he grew up as a lad.
After 92 years, it was perhaps about time he had another one.
Today it was the turn of Her Majesty the Queen, who was visiting London headquarters of Coram, Britain’s oldest children’s charity.

Back in 1926 it was King George V and Queen Mary, who visited what was then the Foundling Hospital, 
where the 10-year-old Edward Newton was a pupil.

Back then he was one of the junior boys, only granted a glimpse of the king and queen as they rode past in their carriage.


Today there were no carriages, only cars: and Mr Newton, the oldest surviving pupil of the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury, which was founded in 1739 by Thomas Coram, was presented to the Queen as one of the guests of honour.


Earlier Mr Newton, a sprightly figure who said he still reads The Times every day, recalled: “I was a young lad then. I was only about ten. We had to line up - boys on one side, girls on the other. There was a drive then up to the old school, with beautiful iron gates. They opened up and the coach came and drove up. I was down the small end. All the older boys went up to the main building. We all waved.”