Horace Sewell was born in Wales on 10 February 1881; he was the third son of Henry Sewell, who was in turn the eldest son of the prominent
Jamaica planter William Sewell and the
mulatto former slave Mary McCrea. Henry Sewell returned to England, where he married and eventually settled at Steephill Castle near
Ventnor on the
Isle of Wight, but he inherited his father's Jamaica plantation "empire" in 1872, and subsequently divided his time between England and Jamaica, eventually relocating permanently back to the island. Horace Sewell was educated at
Harrow School and
Trinity College,
Cambridge, before joining the
4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards in 1900. His regimental nickname was "Sambo", apparently a reference to his Jamaican roots. Sewell was seconded to the
West African Frontier Force for three years from 1907, with a promotion to Captain following soon after the start of the assignment. By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, his regiment was serving in the
British Expeditionary Force; he was quickly promoted to major, and took command the regiment as a temporary lieutenant-colonel in March 1915. In April 1918, he was promoted to command the
1st Cavalry Brigade of the British Army, which he led until the end of the Great War. General Sewell was a highly decorated soldier, earning the
DSO in 1915, the French ''
Légion d'honneur'' in 1916, a
bar to his DSO for service at the
Battle of Cambrai in 1917, and the
CMG in 1919, as well as being twice wounded and five times mentioned in dispatches. He also found time in 1916 to marry the daughter of the
New York gypsum magnate Jerome Berre King. After the war he commanded the
7th Queen's Own Hussars until 1923, subsequently the Midland Cavalry Brigade of the Territorial Army until 1928. During
World War II, Brigadier-General Sewell was attached to the
British Information Services in New York . He matriculated his coat of arms in 1940 and settled at the medieval Tysoe Manor in
Warwickshire, but latterly spent much of his time on Jamaica, where he served as a
Justice of the Peace. Brigadier-General Sewell apparently
passed for white, and evidence of his mixed-race heritage surprised modern researchers, but his nickname suggests that his ancestry was known to his comrades and subordinates, and he was recognized as "black" by Americans who he came in contact with during his World War II posting. ==References==