NAME:	Harold Newel
GENDER:	Male
EVENT TYPE:	Birth
BIRTH DATE:	17 Oct 1890
BIRTH PLACE:	Dock, Port de Grave, Newfoundland, Canada
FATHER:	Nathaniel Newel
MOTHER:	Margaret Newel

When I started researching the history of the Newells of the Dock for a university project in 1971 my father (John Robert) suggested I contact Harold Newell.  At that time Harold was 81 and living with his wife at their home in St. John’s. Harold had researched the family history and had  numerous notebooks containing his research (which he did not show me) and over the course of several visits we discussed various topics related to the early family history.

Here is some background info on Harold:

Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, volume 4

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/ref/collection/cns_enl/id/4092

Note: The Dock was frequently identified as either Bareneed or Port-de-Grave.

Name:	Harold Newell
Occupation	Teacher
Arrival Age:	21
Birth Year:	abt 1891
Departure Port:	Port aux Basques, Newfoundland
Arrival Date:	3 Jul 1912
Arrival Port:	North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
Vessel:	Invermore

1921 Census of Bareneed

NAME:	Harold Newell
GENDER:	Male
MARITAL STATUS:	Single
RESIDENCE AGE:	30
BIRTH DATE:	1891
BIRTH PLACE:	Dock, Newfoundland
RESIDENCE DATE:	1921
RESIDENCE PLACE:	Dock, Port de Grave, Newfoundland, Canada
RELATION TO HEAD:	Head
Occupation	Teacher

Graduated Memorial College 1932, Harold Newell, is a retired teacher-librarian ,living in St. John’s.

Bishop’s University

At Gosling Memorial Library 1948

Atlantic Guardian, vol. 05, no. 03 (June 1948)

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/guardian/id/3809/rec/41

Harold was a graduate of Bishop’s University in Quebec.

Re his role in Newfoundland History Society

In a memo to Smallwood dated April 24, 1951, Crewe formalized ideas that the two amateur historians had “often discussed since the time when, about 1933, you began to share my own interest in … Nfld’s history, records and souvenirs.” He proposed the creation through legislation of a “Newfoundland Historical Records Commission” to locate, acquire, inventory, and preserve historical records, record the inscriptions of all pre-1880 cemetery headstones, collect histories of outport settlements, and publicize local history through publication. The Commission’s mandate would be to acquire old account books, diaries, family letters, photographs and the like, archive old court records, photocopy church registers, and preserve historic buildings and furniture. Crewe had discussed his proposal with several prominent individuals with a strong interest in Newfoundland history — book collectors and lawyers Jack Higgins and Robert Furlong, Gosling librarian and president of the Newfoundland Historical Society Harold Newell, journalist Michael Harrington, St. John’s city clerk Edward Foran, and Memorial University professor Moses Morgan.⁽¹⁹⁾

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~melbaker/CARNEGIE.htm

Newspaper Transcriptions Daily News  YEAR END EVENTS 1937

April 1, 1937 EVENTS OF THE YEAR AT HOME AND ABROAD

Mr. H. Newell , hon. Secretary, gave lecture on “Early Years of Newfoundland Government“ before Newfoundland Historical Society. Mrs. (Rev.) H. Tomkinson addressed Rotary Club on “Traditional Lore of the Oldest Colony.”

July 24, 1937  MARRIAGES OF THE YEAR  Harold Newell and Miss Nellie Marion Bartlett.

Re his role with Gosling Library

Newell wrote his two-page article for inclusion in Joseph Smallwood’s 1937 “The Book of Newfoundland.” Newell had been named by the government as librarian in 1934 but I think I am right in saying that most of the time between his appointment in July of that year and the opening of “the Gosling” about a year-and-a-half later was taken up with organizing, finding board members, buying books, cataloguing. And in that time, money and books were happily received, including, in 1935, an assortment of 2,000 books from Grand Falls founder Harold Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, “many of which are standard works of reference, Newell wrote. 

http://www.lportepilot.ca/living/2016/6/6/paul-sparkes-not-by-bread-alone-4551070.html

1957  H. NEWELL, Director of Public Library Services.

His Retirment 

– NEWFOUNDLAND – In early November [1960], Mr. Eric Moon left the library services of
Newfoundland , after a sixteen-month stay,  take up his new duties in New York as editor of the Library Journal. Mr. Harold Newell, who retired last March has temporarily stepped back inot his old post as dirctor without  causing the merest perceptible jolt while arrangements are being made for
the appointment of a new Librari es Service head .

Bulletin ATLANTIC PROVINCES LIBRARY ASSOCIATION Winter 1960

His death reported in the Newfoundland Historical Society Annual Report 1973-74

It is with deep sorrow and regreat that we have to record the death of three of our members.· .. The Honourable Campbell L. Macpherson, OBE, former Lieutenant Governor, who died on June 28, 1973; Herman Quigley, who died in May 1973, and Harold Newell, for many years a tower of strength to the Society, who died on January 2, 1974. Mr. Newell was a life member of the Society. Letters of sympathy
were sent on behalf of the members of the Newfoundland Historical Society to the sorrowing families.