(1886–1963).

Sixth Governor-General of New Zealand.

Cyril Louis Norton Newall was born on 15 February 1886, the son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Potter Newall of the Indian Army. He was educated at Bedford School and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1905 he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served in the Zakkha Khel Expedition in 1908. In the following year he transferred to the 2nd (King Edward's Own) Gurkhas, with whom he remained until 1914 when he joined the Royal Flying Corps. He served in the First World War, being mentioned in dispatches three times and was awarded the Albert Medal (first class) and, also, the C.B.E. In 1919 he was transferred to the Royal Air Force.

From 1919 until 1922 Lord Newall was Deputy Director of Personnel at the Air Ministry and, for the next two years, served as A.D.C. to King George V. He was appointed Air Officer Commanding the Special Reserve in 1925 and was Director of Operations and Intelligence and Deputy Chief of Air Staff from 1926 to 1931. Promoted to the rank of Air Vice-Marshal in 1931, he served for one year as Additional Member of the Air Council before becoming Air Officer Commanding Wessex Bombing Area. For the next three years he commanded the Royal Air Force in the Middle East. At the close of this tour of duty he was knighted and returned to England as Member of the Air Council for Supply and Organisation (1935–37). In 1937 he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal and, from then until 1940, was Chief of Air Staff. In the latter year he was made a Marshal of the Royal Air Force and received the Order of Merit for his services during the early stages of the Second World War. On 10 February 1941 Lord Newall was designated to succeed Lord Galway as Governor-General of New Zealand. He assumed office on 22 February 1941 and retired on 6 June 1946. A month later he was elevated to the peerage and assumed the style “Baron Newall of Clifton-upon-Dunsmoor in the County of Warwick”. While he was in New Zealand Lord Newall played a leading part in the wartime patriotic movement.

Lord Newall married, first, on 18 January 1922, May Dulcie Weddell (who died in 1924); and, secondly, Olive Tennyson Foster, D.St.J., only daughter of Mrs Frances Storer Eaton, of Boston, United States. He had one son and two daughters by his second marriage. He died at London on 30 November 1963.

Lord Newall had been honoured by many countries. He held the Legion of Honour (France), the Order of the Crown of Italy, the Order of Leopold of Belgium, and the Belgian Croix de Guerre. More recently he had become vice-president of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.