Biography:

MAJOR SIDNEY DAVIES SEWELL, T.D., R.E. (T.F.). KILLED IN ACTION NEAR YPRES, FEBRUARY 18TH, 1915. AGED 40. At the School 1888—92 (Park House). S. D. Sewell was the elder son of the late Colonel T. Davies Sewell, Clerk to the Spectaclemakers' Company, and one of the Proprietors of the Broad Arrow and of the Naval and Military Gazette. Born in 1874, he was intimately connected with the City of London. His grandfather on his mother's side. Mr. George Burt, was one of the Sheriffs, and his paternal grandfather, Mr. H. W. Sewell, was for many years City Swordbearer. S. D. Sewell came to Tonbridge in 1888, and was in Park House under Mr. Little and Mr. Stokoe till 1892. On leaving School, he joined the 1st Middlesex R.E. (Vols.), the Regiment to which ths School Corps was subsequently attached on its foundation in 1893. Thus he found himself soon acting as superior officer to two Masters under whom he had been a boy at School (Mr. Earl and Mr. Goldberg). He occasionally visited Tonbridge in his military capacity during the fourteen years of connection between the School and his Regiment. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1894, and Captain 1898. When the South African War broke out he filled, with great ability and keenness, an important R.E. appointment at Aldershot, which was usually held by a Major of the Regular Army. In 1907 the 1st Middlesex R.E. (Vols.) became the 2nd London R.E. of the Territorial Force ; and the creation of the O.T.C. brought an end to the direct connection between the School and that Regiment. Sewell was promoted Major in 1910, and placed in command of the 3rd Field Company of the 2nd London R.E. His death in action at the age of forty removes a most capable officer and a fine all-round sportsman from the Territorial Force, and snaps a link in tie chain of the present and past military relations of the School. He took the 3rd Field Company to France on January 19th, 1915, and after being engaged in hut building for a time they were employed in digging trenches in the neighbourhood of Ypres. An account that appeared in a London paper told how on the night of February 18th, at the cost of heavy casualties, they succeeded in digging a trench under heavy fire within 25 yards of the German advanced trenches. On that night Major Sewell and three other officers of the Company were killed. He was buried in the Menin Gate Cemetery at Ypres. A stone that was carved and put up there by his men is now in the mortuary chapel of the Swanage Cottage Hospital, of which he had been Honorary Secretary. Major Sewell was a freeman of the Skinners' Company.


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S. D. Sewell came to Tonbridge in 1888, and was in Park House under Mr. Little and Mr. Stokoe till 1892.