John Newenham:JOHN NEWENHAM, who has died aged 84, was a landowner, businessman and stalwart of the Protestant community in Carrigaline, Co Cork.
He was a successful vegetable grower who served as field master of the South Union Hunt Club and commodore of Baltimore Sailing School, and who will be remembered as a dapper figure of large faith, a keen gardener who persevered and was utterly without malice.
Newenham was born in 1926 to a prominent Cork family and was educated at Castle Park, outside Dublin, Wrekin College in Shropshire and the University of Nottingham. His father, Capt Percy Worth Newenham, served with the Royal Munster Fusiliers while an ancestor, John Newenham de Newenham, was one of the commissioners who carried out the Domesday survey, the record of land, buildings and people in England, completed in 1086 on the orders of William the Conqueror.
Newenham was raised at the ancestral home in Coolmore, which served as the principal location for the rackety Temple Alice in the television version of Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour. He made a cameo appearance in some hunting scenes of the series.
He was the youngest of six children and enjoyed a good outdoor life with his brothers and sisters. They were often mischievous and shortly after the telephone was introduced to Coolmore, Newenham, along with his brother Ted, goaded their older brother Worth into successfully shooting out the telephone line with a .22 rifle, much to their parents’ annoyance.
Upon returning from university, Newenham farmed the walled garden at Coolmore, before convincing his father to give him his inheritance some 14 years early, so he could expand his business and grow enough vegetables to export.
He was one of the first growers to come up with (what was then) the innovative idea of pre-packing vegetables and exported both new potatoes and cauliflowers to Wales prior to the formation of the European common market.
As an employer, he will be remembered for his honesty and integrity. He had a short fuse but always got over any disagreement, and was even known to reprimand a member of staff later in the day for “allowing the sun to go down on the wrath of his brother”.
He had a passion for sailing and in his days as commodore of Baltimore Sailing Club, in 1976, was involved in the expansion of Baltimore clubhouse, adding on the upstairs bar to what was then a one-roomed building.
In addition to farming, Newenham loved the land. He was a passionate gardener and had a great love of nature. He was familiar with every plant and bird in the area and his vegetable garden was known to be so close to perfection it would have won awards had he entered it into competitions.
Newenham loved entertaining and having friends to stay, so much so, that one carer, upon seeing the visitors’ book in his house, asked if he and his wife had once run a bed breakfast.
He had an active and loyal membership of the Masonic Lodge in Cork up until the onset of illness in 2009, and was a lifelong devotee to St Mary’s Church in Carrigaline.
Well known locally for his kindness, his interest and concern for people made him many friends.
He is survived by Vola, his wife of 59 years, his son Rowland and two daughters, Rachel and Dee.
John Edmund Worth Newenham: born February 18th, 1926; died July 1st, 2010