Thomas Sewell (judge)
Sir Thomas Sewell PC (c. 1710 – 6 March 1784) was an English judge and Member of Parliament, and Master of the Rolls from 1764 to 1784.[1] Sewell was a member of Middle Temple, called to the bar in 1734,[2] and practised in the Chancery courts, where he was highly successful.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.He stood instead at Exeter, where he was heavily defeated despite Prime Minister Newcastle's support, though this time at his own expense rather than the government's.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.