Brigadier-General Horace Somerville Sewell CMG DSO & Bar (10 February 1881 – 25 December 1953) was an officer in the British Army during World War I, notable for his mixed-race ancestry.
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.
[1] Horace Sewell was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before joining the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards in 1900.
[6] He matriculated his coat of arms in 1940 and settled at the medieval Tysoe Manor in Warwickshire,[7] but latterly spent much of his time on Jamaica, where he served as a Justice of the Peace.
[8] 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.