Francis Hill Sewell

The Reverend Francis Hill Sewell (1815–1862) was a clergyman and philanthropist who was largely responsible for the rebuilding and restoration of All Saints Church, Lindfield in the parish of Lindfield, Sussex, today a Grade II* Listed Building. In 1848 Sewell graduated from Caius College Cambridge and became the Curate of All Saints, where he contributed more than £650 of his own money towards the estimated £2,000 total needed, engaging the architect John Henry Taylor to oversee the restoration of the building to its 14th Century splendour. Sewell was also responsible for the foundation of the National School in Lindfield in 1851.

Early life Sewell was born in India in 1815, the second son of Major General Robert Sewell, a governor of the East India Company, and his wife Eliza Serena Macnaghten, daughter of Sir Francis Workman-Macnachten, 1st Baronet. Over the course of the 18th Century the Sewell family had grown influential and wealthy, initially from the practice of law and later through military service, politics and landownership, including plantations in the West Indies. He studied at and graduated from Gonville and Caius Colleges at Cambridge University in 1839. Lindfield at this time was "utterly neglected" and "no part of England was more desolate". This sorry state of affairs changed with Sewell's appointment; the new curate brought a "Victorian reformer's zeal" to the welfare and restoration of the church.

National School Sewell also contributed to the education of children in Lindfield by instigating the building of a National School, which opened on Lindfield Common in 1851.

Death and legacy Sewell died in 1862.