Career
He was the leading architect in the Dumfries area, from the 1820s until his retirement. Newall began his design career in partnership with an upholsterer and a cabinet maker in the Dumfries firm of Newall, Hannah and Reid. Nothing is known of any architectural training, although Howard Colvin suggests that his knowledge of up-to-date styles points to time spent with an architect of standing.
Throughout his working life he lived mainly in Dumfries, travelling around Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire in the course of his work.
His papers show him to have made tours of Germany and Italy, as well as parts of England, notably Oxford, Cambridge and Fonthill. Newall died at Craigend, New Abbey, on Christmas Day, 1863.
An extensive archive of Newall"s sketchbooks, drawings and plans have survived and were purchased by Dumfries Museum in the spring of 1991. Newall is buried in Saint Michael"s Churchyard, Dumfries.