Newbolt’s father, brother-in-law of Henry Penton, was a mainstay of the latter’s electoral interest at Winchester. At Oxford, Newbolt was one of Canning’s Christ Church set and Canning described him in 1794 as ‘a very particular friend of mine’. He married for love on £400 a year, but his prospects improved when he obtained a place under Lord Chancellor Loughborough. He also practised on the western circuit and in Chancery with sufficient success. He entered Parliament on a vacancy at Bramber in 1800, on the 5th Duke of Rutland’s interest. The seat had been placed at Pitt’s disposal and doubtless Canning recommended him. It was understood that he was keeping the seat warm for the patron’s brother, a minor; he paid his own election expenses. Leave was sought for him to give up personal attendance on the lord chancellor, as it ‘would not be decorous in a Member of the House of Commons’ to attend ‘in the chancellor’s train in the House of Lords’. Soon afterwards he became an auditor of the duchy of Lancaster, of which the 1st Earl of Liverpool was then chancellor.
Newbolt’s maiden speech was in support of Mildmay’s motion to regulate émigré monastic institutions, in which his father was strongly interested, 22 May 1800. On Pitt’s resignation, Canning pressed him not to follow him into the political wilderness, emphasizing Pitt’s wish that Addington’s ministry should be supported by his friends. On 16 Feb. 1801 Canning wrote, ‘Newbolt has the offer of a place, which (in spite of my most earnest entreaties) he hesitates about accepting—and I am accused of keeping him back. With him however I hope to succeed.’ Canning’s failure was subsequently regarded by Newbolt as the reason for the lapse of friendship between them. The office was apparently that afterwards filled by Serjeant Praed (chairman of the audit board) and Newbolt was also pressed by Lord Liverpool to accept it. The replacement of Loughborough by Eldon as lord chancellor was a further setback—he did not take silk, as it had been supposed he would, at Loughborough’s instigation.
Newbolt informed Lord Liverpool, 25 June 1801, that he wanted office to support his growing family, whether in his profession or out of it. In August he applied in vain for a judgeship in Canada. He showed his goodwill towards Addington’s ministry in a speech in favour of the Baltic convention, 13 Nov. 1801. On 19 Nov. he attempted to amend the Poor Law by removing the stigma of the wearing of badges by paupers, which had fallen into disuse but had lately been revived. After several debates, in one of which Addington was somewhat patronizing to Newbolt’s bill, it passed on 2 Dec. Soon afterwards he declined the office of advocate general at Madras offered him by the chairman of the East India Company, whose son Charles Mills was a friend of his. Instead he recommended James Mackintosh to Addington for it. He attended until the close of the session in 1802, ‘to assist in making a House’, at John Hiley Addington’s request.
Newbolt had attempted, through Lord Hawkesbury, to obtain another seat in the Parliament of 1802 and on 26 June, having heard nothing, asked Lord Liverpool if Addington might secure for him the ‘continuance’ of his present one. He was ‘perfectly ready to bear any expense which it is in my power, with the assistance of my friends, to defray’. Liverpool, while admitting the advantage of having a duchy officer in the House, feared that it would not be a strong enough reason to sway Addington ‘without some other consideration’ and that the application would probably be too late; nor could Pitt help.
Newbolt had to wait until 1810 for his appointment. His wife was dead and his bereavement had intensified his wish to be gone. On arrival in Madras he remarried.