Robyns. He was educated at Sherborne, Lubeck and Harrow and is also known to have received a military education. Historian Ian Knight notes that he is sometimes reported to have served as an officer (several contemporaries refer to him as "captain") in the British Army or one of the colonial forces but found no evidence of service. Norris-Newman was present at the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and was decorated for his service during the battle by the city's governor Louis-Jules Trochu. He accompanied Infante Carlos, Duke of Madrid during the Third Carlist War (1872–1876) and was with General Charles George Gordon during his service in Egypt (from 1873). He married Anne Falkner of Farnham in 1874. He filed for bankruptcy in December 1875, whilst he was living on Kennington Park Road in Surrey. Anglo-Zulu War Norris-Newman arrived in Southern Africa in 1877. At the outbreak of the Anglo-Zulu War in early 1879 he was the only newspaper correspondent with the British force invading Zululand. The British press showed little interest in the occupation, their war correspondents being pre-occupied with the ongoing Second Anglo-Afghan War. Norris-Newman was contracted as a special correspondent to The Standard but by arrangement his reporting was also made available to the local newspapers the Times of Natal and the Cape Standard and Mail. Norris-Newman accompanied Lord Chelmsford's principal force, the Centre Column. He attached himself to the 3rd Regiment of the Natal Native Contingent (NNC), a black African force led by white officers and non-commissioned officers. The unit's commander, Rupert la Trobe Lonsdale, gave him the nickname "Noggs", after the character Newman Noggs in Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. He was the first man with the invading force to cross the Buffalo river into Zululand on 11 January, swimming his horse across at 5:00am before the military began their crossing by pont. Norris-Newman accompanied Chelmsford in observing the first engagement of the war, the 12 January Action at Sihayo's Kraal. Norris-Newman avoided death in the 22 January Battle of Isandlwana, in which the Centre Column's camp in Zululand was wiped out, as he had accompanied the 3rd NNC and Chelmsford on a reconnaissance expedition that morning. Norris-Newman returned with the reconnaissance party later that day. They bivouacked on the bloody battlefield before heading for the post at Rorke's Drift. Uncertain if the post had fallen to the Zulu attack Norris-Newman was with the first