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Fitzroy Hamilton Spencer Sewell

Inspector and Paymaster, Natal Mounted Police and Natal Police

- South Africa General Service Medal 1877-79, no clasp (self-named) to Ag. Staff Officer, F.H.S. Sewell
- Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps Natal and South Africa 1901 to Inspector F.H. Sewell, Natal Police

Fitzroy Hamilton Spencer Sewell had an illustrious lineage. Born in Bangalore, India on 7 April 1842 he was the youngest son of no less a personage than General Sir William Sewell KCB, a veteran of the Peninsula campaign who went on to serve for 28 years in India, and his wife Georgianna. On 21 April 1842 his baptism was solemnised at the Chaplain’s Station within the Archdeaconry of Madras – otherwise known as St. Marks in Bangalore where his father was stationed at the time.



As was customary for the period Fitzroy, along with his male siblings, was sent “home” to England for his education. The 1851 census clearly shows that he was an 8 year old scholar at a school in Kemerton, Worcestershire run by Frederick H. Bennett, a 34 year old Priest of the English Church “having no care of souls”. Fitzroy wasn’t alone – he was joined by brothers John (14) and Henry (12).

Having completed his education Sewell was now in the market for gainful employment. Being of a military family it followed that one of more of the sons would follow in their father’s footsteps and don a uniform. The Sewell’s were no exception and, in 1863, at the age of 21, Fitzroy was commissioned as an Ensign in the Ceylon Rifles transferring later to the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment for which purposes he was stationed in Ireland for a number of years. He served in this Regiment both in India and in Britain but saw no action which would have either earned him a medal or enhanced his military reputation.

There was time for romance as well – on 8 February 1870, at the church of St. Saviour’s in South Hampstead, Sewell wed Georgiana Ottley, the daughter of deceased clergyman Lawrence Ottley. The marriage certificate records that Sewell was a Gentleman (implying that he had by that time purchased his discharge from the army) and that he was resident at St. Matthew’s in Richmond.

The Belfast News-Letter of Monday morning, February 14, 1870 joyously trumpeted to the news to their readers that Sewell had been married:

“By the Lord Bishop of Ripon, uncle of the bride, to Georgina, daughter of the late Reverend Lawrence Ottley, Canon of Ripon and Rector of Richmond, Yorkshire.”

Newly-wed and looking for something with which to occupy his time Sewell took the momentous decision to remove himself from England, choosing to come to the Colony of Natal sometime later in 1870. Natal in the 70’s was a bustling yet still small Colony with Durban as its sea port and Pietermaritzburg as its capital and seat of government. Having arrived in the Colony he, together with Cecil Rhodes, farmed cotton in the Umkomaas valley, near Mid-Illovo for a time.

Cecil John Rhodes had first arrived in Durban on 1 September 1870. After a brief stay with the Surveyor-General of Natal, Dr. P.C. Sutherland, in Pietermaritzburg, he then joined his brother Herbert on his cotton farm in the Umkomaas valley in Natal. It was here that Sewell worked. Rhodes described that place thus:

“I never saw such an extra-ordinarily beautiful place in life. There, hundreds of feet below us, stretched out the whole valley with our huts looking like specs, and in the distance there were hills rising one above another, with a splendid blue tint on them”

From the mention of the word “huts” it can only be assumed that conditions were primitive and not all what either Rhodes or indeed Sewell would have been accustomed to.

After trying his hand at cotton farming Sewell called it a day (Rhodes had in any event left in 1871 for the Kimberley diamond fields) and decided to move his small family to Pietermaritzburg (his wife had borne a daughter, Helen Agnes Mary where, on 15 December 1873 according to the Natal Blue Book, the Lieutenant-Governor appointed him Staff Clerk in the Volunteer Department on the nomination of the Inspector of Volunteers. His salary was £100 per annum and in addition to the aforementioned, he was appointed Honorary Secretary to the Immigration Board. He became a clerk in the Treasury Department in 1876.

At no stage did he appear to have used his connection with Rhodes to advance his prospects – something commonly done in Victorian times in order to gain advancement or preferment. This could have been because he was clearly well acquainted with Major (later Major-General Sir John) Dartnell, another veteran of army service in India, who had founded the Natal Mounted Police (NMP) in 1874.



Sewell’s first formal association with the NMP came on 30 June 1875, when Major Dartnell, Commandant of the NMP and Volunteers, requested that Sewell be authorized to act for him during his absence from Pietermaritzburg on inspection duty. Sewell applied for extra pay while acting for Dartnell, but this was refused despite Dartnell’s own recommendation, dated 21 September 1875, which read as follows:

“Mr Sewell has acted for me for upon several occasions and during the whole of the month of July he was in charge at Headquarters during my absence on duty. I therefore recommend that Sub-Inspector’s pay for that month be granted him.”

Four years later Natal was in the grip of an impending conflict between the Zulus under Cetewayo and the Imperial Government. Full scale war erupted at the beginning of 1879 and continued until the Zulu’s were finally conquered and their spirit broken with the Battle of Ulundi in July that year.

During this war, Sewell was Acting Staff Officer in the Volunteer Department, serving under Colonel C P H Mitchell at the base of operations, for which he was awarded the S A Medal 1877-79, without clasp. Whether or not he was actually awarded tis medal is a contentious topic. Nowhere is his name to be found on the official rolls for the award of the medal although these are, in many instances both inaccurate and incomplete. That Sewell felt entitled to the medal is beyond dispute as, in at least one photograph before the turn of the century, he is sporting a medal ribbon bar. Mention is also made in the Nonquai magazine (in his obituary) in 1909 that he was awarded the medal. The only “Zulu” medal known to exist in connection with himself is one which has been neatly renamed in an engraving style reminiscent of the period.

He was, however, only transferred from the Civil Service to the NMP as Pay and Quartermaster in April 1880, with the rank of Sub-Inspector on appointment. By this time the Zulu War was long over. In his capacity as Paymaster he was authorized to sign all “Treasury Vouchers, receipts, cheques, paysheets etc connected with the Mounted Police”. He was required to enter into a “fresh Bond for the performance of his duties” as Pay and Quartermaster in 1884.

When the NMP and other law-enforcement agencies in Natal were amalgamated into the Natal Police (NP) in 1894, Sewell was appointed Paymaster of the NP with the rank of Inspector. Hurford (1937: 524) writing of life in the NP during the 1890’s compared Sewell with Commissioner Dartnell as follows:
“Paymaster Sewell was a different type, distinctly of the clerical branch, his face untanned and showing pale by contrast with the sunburnt and weather beaten faces around.”

Sewell served in the NP throughout the Anglo-Boer War and was awarded the QSA with two clasps (Natal, South Africa 1901). He was stationed at Headquarters in Alexandria Road, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg for the duration.

Sewell, like most other members of the NP, was not awarded the South Africa 1902 clasp (Medal Roll WO 100/261 dated 9/7/1908), evidently because the campaign in Natal was over by 1902 and the NP were then considered to be not on active service. This is curiously inconsistent with an earlier Supplementary Roll (dated 14/1/1907), which was compiled mainly to accommodate those men who had joined the NP too late to qualify for either the Natal or battle clasps, since these men were awarded both date clasps. The inconsistency is compounded by the fact that a few men on the 14/1/1907 Roll (e.g. 1929 Trooper O W Pritchard), who were inadvertently omitted from the original Roll dated 8/9/1901, received the QSA with Natal clasp and both date clasps. These men thus gained an extra clasp simply because of their chance omission from the first Roll.



But the period over which the Boer War was fought had other more painful memories for Sewell and could well have had an influence over his movements. The sad news was contained in the Register of Deaths in the District of Pietermaritzburg where, on page 29 of that document, it was revealed that on 27 December 1899 at 1 Prince Alfred Street, Georgina Sewell, aged 52, and wife of Fitzroy Sewell, had passed away from enteric. .

Sewell retired on 15 March 1904 after 23 years of distinguished service with the NMP and NP, and he left Natal for England on 10 May 1905. Settling in Gloucestershire initially he is referred to in Lt. Colonel Mardell’s (Ex Officer Commanding the Natal Police) private memoirs in a letter his old friend and comrade Colonel Dartnell penned to Mardell on 6 September 1907 wherein he states:-

“Sewell wrote me from Gloucestershire and asked me to run over and see them but when I came to enquire about my route there I found I would take all day getting there. Fitzroy talks of going to Jersey for the winter and settling down there for a while.”

A still later letter between the two dated 8 July 1908 provides proof that Sewell did indeed venture to Jersey – the excerpt read as follows:

“I believe the Jersey College is a very good school for boys but I have never been in the island so cannot tell. Sewell however can tell you all about it for he has been there for some time now. Helen Sewell looked us up the other day and is still in London. I believe as energetic as ever but not looking as well as I should have liked to have seen her. She worked too hard in Maritzburg before coming home I suppose.”



After residing in Jersey Sewell moved to Penzance in Cornwall where he died on 2 January 1910 after a 15 month illness. His obituary in The Nongqai (1909/10: 430) recorded “A pathetic coincidence was that on the very day of his funeral, on the 5th January, his elder brother, General Fane Sewell, late of the Hyderabad Contingent, also died.”

After the death of his first wife he had married again – on this occasion to an Isabel Moore of Pietermaritzburg. It was this lady who, in March 1910, requested financial assistance from the Premier of Natal, the Right Honourable (later Sir) Frederick Moor. She wrote thus from 36 Banbury Road, King’s Norton in Worcestershire:-

“Dear Sir

As you are doubtless aware my husband, Fitzroy Sewell, who was a pensioner of the Natal Government, died on January 2nd last. He had enjoyed his pension for less than 6 years, owing to the expenses connected with his long illness, his resources were entirely exhausted at the time of his death.

I was practically dependent on his pension, for the small sum I have is quite inadequate for my suitable support. Under these circumstances, and in consideration of my husband’s 30 year’s faithful service to the Colony, and the short time that he drew his pension, may I venture to ask the government whether they can allow me a year’s pension as an act of grace.

It would greatly relieve my present anxieties and would enable me to make some arrangements for the future. May I trust that you will kindly recommend me for the consideration I ask.”

Not even the exaggeration of his length of service helped and her request for assistance was refused. In typical Treasury fashion it was coldly stated that, “Mr Sewell had at the time of his death already drawn pension in excess of any amount which would otherwise have been awarded to his widow.” In addition, “At the time the late Mr. F.H.S. Sewell was retired he was a widower. He re-married subsequently.”


Sewell is top row, second from the right in this 1894 photo

Fitzroy Sewell’s daughter, Helen, returned to South Africa after his death. She was a Teacher with the Natal Education Department and never married. She passed away at the age of 74 on 15 January 1945 leaving a very detailed list of bequests to family and friends. Among these was “The Zulu and Boer War Medals and miniature medals belonging to my father, Fitzroy Sewell along with the Burmese Silver Bowl and Stand which was brought from Burma by my grandfather before 1842 and in which my father was christened.” The aforementioned bequests were made to her cousin Robert Elliott Sewell.

Thank You Rory...…
Even on your holiday's you can write a fantastic piece of research...…
Mike