Edwin Tulley Newton was born on May 4, 1840, in London, England.

He was a British paleontologist and geologist. He originally worked at handicrafts, but after attending lectures of anthropologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) at the Royal Mining School, he got interested in natural history and was appointed as his assistant in 1865. In 1882, he became paleontologist to the Geologic Survey, a position he retained until 1905. In 1887, he made the first comparison of the skull of a pterodactyl to modern birds and lizards, suggesting that modern birds are more closely associated with the reptile line than had been previously pondered. He was president of the Geologists' Association in 1896–1898 and president of the Paleontographical Society from 1921 to 1928. He was elected Fellow of the Geological Society in 1873, Zoological Society of London in 1885, and Fellow of the Royal Society in 1893. Newton won the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society in 1893.

In 1868, he married Emma Snow (1839–). He died on January 28, 1930, in London, England.