Charles Hand Newton was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he was educated at Christchurch Boys’ High School and Canterbury College before travelling to Edinburgh, Scotland, for his medical education. During his student days he represented Canterbury College at tennis and took part in the first inter-university national tournament. While in Edinburgh he attended the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for clinical work. Hand Newton returned to New Zealand in 1913 and in 1914 joined the New Zealand Medical Corps. He served in Gallipoli, Palestine and France, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel. From 1916 to 1917 he commanded the New Zealand Mounted Brigade Field Hospital, and in 1918 he commanded the New Zealand Stationary Hospital in France. He was awarded the DSO and bar and was twice mentioned in dispatches.

Hand Newton returned to New Zealand where in 1919 he was appointed honorary physician to the Christchurch Hospital. He had a distinguished career in Christchurch as a physician, combining this with general practice. He was regional medical officer for Canterbury, war pensions medical officer, and in 1935 became the first director of medicine at the Christchurch Hospital. On retirement from hospital service in 1946 he was appointed to the Hospital’s honorary consulting staff.

Hand Newton was a member of the New Zealand Medical Association’s central disciplinary committee and chairman of the Travis Research Trust. He was the originator, and for many years editor, of the Christchurch Hospital Medical Manual for the guidance of resident medical officers and others. In a small book entitled A Physician in Peace and War, written in his later years, he gave a vivid account of his life with particular reference to his wartime experiences. From 1920 to 1950 Hand Newton was medical officer at Christ’s College, a large private secondary school for boys. He was a foundation Fellow of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, becoming a vice-president. At College meetings he contributed a number of papers on general topics. For nine years he was an examiner in medicine at the Otago University School of Medicine. For some years, until his retirement in 1949, he was an honorary physician to the Governor-General.

Throughout his life Hand Newton retained his love of the outdoors and of sport. His interests were fly-fishing, tennis and bridge. His wife, whose maiden name was Spooner, bore him two girls and a boy. Hand Newton’s pride in his family extended to his famous brother-in-law the great physicist, Lord Rutherford of Nelson. He died in 1969 at the age of eighty-five and his death marked the end of an era of physicians whose diagnostic acumen depended very much on their bedside clinical skill.