Thomas Sewell

The Right Honourable Sir Thomas Sewell KC
Master of the Rolls
In office 4 December 1764 – 6 March 1784
Monarch	George III
Preceded by	Sir Thomas Clarke
Succeeded by	Sir Lloyd Kenyon
Personal details
Born	c. 1710
Died	March 6, 1784
Profession	Barrister

Sir Thomas Sewell PC KC (c. 1710 – 6 March 1784) was an English judge and Member of Parliament, and Master of the Rolls from 1764 to 1784.

Sewell was a member of Middle Temple, called to the bar in 1734, and practised in the Chancery courts. He became a bencher of his inn and King's Counsel in 1754, and Treasurer of the Inn in 1765. By 1764, he was thought to be making between £3000 and £4000 a year from his practice, and was popular among religious dissenters as their champion in the courts.

He stood for Parliament in 1754 at Wallingford and was defeated, despite spending more than £2000 (from the Prime Minister's election fund) in the attempt, but was elected in 1758 as member for Harwich. Harwich was a "Treasury borough", where the government candidate was certain of success, but Sewell had his own interest in the town as well, since his father-in-law, Thomas Heath had been its MP earlier in the century.

However, he made little impact in the Commons and at the next election was not re-nominated at Harwich. He stood instead at Exeter, where he was badly defeated despite Prime Minister Newcastle's support, though this time at his own expense rather than the government's. Nevertheless, later in the year he was returned instead as the government candidate at Winchelsea.

In 1761, Sewell was one of two candidates considered for appointment as Solicitor General, but the post went instead to Fletcher Norton. However, in 1764 he was knighted and appointed Master of the Rolls, apparently to the surprise of many including himself, after a number of other candidates had refused the post; he held it until his death twenty years later. He was also made a member of the Privy Council.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Concise Dictionary of National Biography
• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)