Governor of the Royal Northern Hospital, 1887-9, who died having bequeathed £15,000 consolidated 2 ¾ per cent Stock to endow the same. The Newbon Ward was named for him.
Find My Past has Robert Alger Newbon born in 1823 in Gibraltar and living in Islington as a widowed auctioneer in 1881.
Newbon Family History has: "Robert Alger Newbon was a very successful London auctioneer, although his origins are rather hazy. He died in 1891 in Islington at the age of 69 a very wealthy man. He made a lengthy will, with numerous charitable bequests. Among the major beneficiaries were the Great Northern Central Hospital, Holloway Road (where his bequest of £15,000 went towards a ‘Newbon Ward’) and the National Lifeboat Institution. He left £20,000 towards five Newbon boats, which were thereafter in operation at the Selsey Lifeboat Station: the Ann Newbon (named after his mother), the Lucy Newbon (after his wife), the Betsey Newbon (after one of his sisters), the Nancy Newbon (after his other sister) and the Bob Newbon (after himself).
"Robert and his two sisters Ann Johnstone Alger Newbon and Elizabeth Alger Newbon were born British subjects in Gibraltar in the 1820s. Robert married Lucy White Hill at Islington parish church in 1847 and the marriage certificate shows that his father was Robert Newbon, a merchant. Nothing more is not {sic} known about Robert senior, however, although his wife Ann appears as a widow on all the English censuses until her death in 1872; the absence of Robert senior on the 1841 census suggests that he was already dead by this date. It is not known when the family returned to England from Gibraltar, or why or when they went there in the first place. Upon their return they lived in Islington thereafter. Mrs Ann Newbon was born in Middlesex (probably in the City of London) in about 1790. Robert Alger Newbon died in 1891, eleven years after his wife; the couple had no children. Robert’s two sisters Ann and Elizabeth both died unmarried, in 1908 and 1887 respectively. The origins of the middle name Alger of Robert and his two sisters is unknown. It is possibly the maiden surname of their mother Ann, but no marriage of Robert Newbon and Ann Alger has so far been unearthed."
