Born in Plymouth, England, Newth was the son of Dr. the Rev Samuel Newth, principal of New College London, a noted Biblical scholar, non-conformist and mathematician. Newth's address in 1871 was 25 Clifton Road, Marylebone when he lived with his parents. He lived with his wife Margaret in Ealing in 1891 and in 1901 they were living at Lyndhunt House, 222 Maldon Road, Croydon, Surrey. Newth was also resident in either Godstone or Wallington in Surrey between 1901-1910. Newth was a student and demonstrator/lecturer and later examiner in Chemistry at the Royal College of Science in London from 1871 to 1909. He worked with other noted chemists including Edward Frankland and William A. Tilden. He was also, in his youth, a keen cyclist and his name and details of a race from Finchley to Welwyn and back appear in a copy of a US cycle magazine. A full and interesting account of this race is recorded in a New Zealand paper : Newth was also an amateur keeper of honey bees after 1898 and letters from him and a photograph of his bee hives at his home in Wallington and Godstone in Surrey appear in the British Bee Keepers Journal between 1901-1910. Other letters and replies to his communications can be accessed by searching on line.pdf copies of this journal with the term 'newth'. George Samuel Newth died in Hythe, Kent, England in 1936. No photographs have yet surfaced of him, although photographs of his father Samuel Newth are known
G. S. Newth was the author of a number of popular books in chemistry, most notably Chemical Lecture Experiments and Inorganic Chemistry. He was elected a fellow of the Chemical Society in 1894. Chemical Lecture Experimentsfirst appeared in 1892 and is a collection of chemistry lecture experiments all of which the author had tried for himself. This book is hard to find now outside of libraries. Several books of chemical lecture experiments were subsequently published by other authors. An identically titled work by American chemist Francis Gano Benedict, was first published in 1901 and acknowledges Newth's book. The final reprint of Newth's Chemical Lecture Experiments appeared in the late 1920s. Newth's Inorganic Chemistry was first published in 1894 although the earliest copy in the British Library is 1896. It was revised and reprinted many times, the final version appearing in 1940 four years after Newth had died and 46 years after its first publication in 1894. Old copies can be found for sale quite reasonably priced from internet book suppliers. Newth also wrote A Manual of Chemical Analysis - Qualitative and Quantitative published in 1898 and Elementary Practical Chemistry first published about 1896 which was for school chemistry classes. This book was titled Elementary Inorganic Chemistry when sold in the US. Smaller Chemical Analysis published in 1906 was his final book. Newth's books were reviewed in a number of journals, including Science and The Lancet. The latter journal in February 1899 mentions that Newth was appointed an examiner in chemistry at the Royal College of Science. Newth also had a number of scientific papers published. An American chemist, George D. Timmons, had a book called Questions on Newth's Inorganic Chemistry published in 1912. It has been reported of John D. R. Thomas, past president of the Royal Society of Chemistry that his interest in chemistry derived from his father’s 1913 edition of G. S. Newth’s Elementary Practical Chemistry - A Laboratory Manual for Use in Organized Science Schools. A memoir of mentions a poem he wrote about chemicals which included a reference to G S Newth. Newth's books offer insight into late Victorian chemistry for schools and colleges; he was in many ways ahead of his time.
