NEWDIGATE, Sir Roger, 5th Bt. (1719-1806), of Arbury, Warws. and Harefield, Mdx.

A large landowner in Warwickshire and Middlesex, Newdigate was returned as a Tory for the latter county in 1742. In a debate on 23 Jan. 1745, he denounced Pelham’s proposal to maintain 28,000 men in Flanders in the coming year as ‘an old measure from a new ministry’. Pitt retorted

that if they completed their last augmentation of 12,000 men, they would have a more numerous army on foot than they kept during King William’s wars. In the heat of his argument, he turned once or twice to Sir R. Newdigate, and asked with an air of disdain ‘if this could be called an old measure from a new ministry’? ... Mr. Pitt’s fulminating eloquence silenced all opposition. Sir R. Newdigate professed an acquiescence, though till he had further lights he could not give a thorough approbation to the question.Yorke’s parl. jnl. Parl Hist. xiii. 1054-6.

During the rebellion he refused to join the county association in defence of the Hanoverian succession.R. J. Robson, Oxfordshire Election of 1754, p. 2. Defeated for Middlesex in 1747, he was returned for Oxford University in 1751, in time to oppose a bill for the naturalization of foreign Protestants and the regency bill.Newdigate Diary, Warws. RO. Next year he spoke for Lord Harley’s motion against subsidies in peacetime. In 1753 he opposed every stage of the bill for the naturalization of the Jews and supported the repeal of the Plantation Act under which foreigners could be naturalized after seven years’ residence in the Colonies.Walpole, Mems. Geo. II, i. 254, 365. He died 23 Nov. 1806.