b. 11/06/1879 Westminster, London. d. 15/03/ 1947 Leeds, Yorkshire.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 06/06/1917 Calais, France.
Herbert William was born in Westminster, London on 11th June 1879, the second of three children of Henry William and Mary Sewell. He trained as an engineer, and on 27th October 1906 he married Maude Emily Haywood in Wandsworth. At the time of the 1911 Census, he and Maude were living in Upper Tooting, with their three year old son, Michael. He enlisted as a Private in the Honorable Artillery Company and went to France on 29th December 1914. He was commissioned in the Royal Engineers on 13th May 1915. He was presented with his AM by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 10th November 1920. Little is known about his life after the Great War. He died in Leeds on 15th March 1947 aged 67.
AM CITATION:
In France, on the 6th June, 1917, during a fire at Calais, Lieutenant Sewell broke through the roof of an engine-house which was in flames;, and removed the weights of the safety valves. But for the officer’s gallant action a serious explosion would have occurred, and he ran grave risk of being fatally scalded by the steam released by the removal of the weights.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
