Author: Sewell, Mary
Biography:
SEWELL, Mary, formerly YOUNG (1767?-1821: ancestry.co.uk)
She was the fourth of five daughters of Sir William Young (1725-88), 1st Baronet, governor of Dominica, politician and wealthy owner of estates and sugar plantations in Antigua, St. Vincent, and Tobago, who had married the West Indies heiress Elizabeth Brook Taylor (1729-1801) in 1747, with a marriage settlement of £14,200. He purchased an estate at Delaford, Iver, Buckinghamshire, in 1767 and lived beyond his means. At his death he left great wealth to his family but also debts of over £110,000 which resulted in the estates going bankrupt. He left 896 slaves, including several as servants to his daughters. William Young (q.v.), 2nd Baronet, was her elder brother. There is no baptism record. Her burial record and newspaper reports give her age at death as 62, indicating a birth around 1760. However, the order of “my said four daughters” in her father’s will of 1788 gives: Elizabeth, Portia, Mary, Olivia. It is thought the three youngest daughters were born in Antigua in 1765, 1767, and 1769. On balance the will is a more reliable guide to her age than a report of her death as a widow without issue. However, the famous painting of the family at Delaford by Zoffany in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, dated 1767-70, gives her sitting on the wall as a teenage girl with William the eldest son. The painting could be misdated or the people misnamed but if it is correct, the 1759 birth date is plausible. Nothing is known of her education. She married Rev. George Sewell (1755-1801) on 14 July 1796 at St. Marylebone, London. He was the son of Sir Thomas Sewell, a wealthy attorney and sometime Master of the Rolls. He died on 30 Jan. 1801 at Byfleet, Surrey, aged 46. She died on 9 Dec. 1821 at Chertsey, Surrey, aged 62. Her final three volumes were well subscribed but little noticed. She has been frequently confused in library catalogues with Mary Julia Young (q.v.)., novelist, poet, and RLF applicant. (ancestry.co.uk 14 Mar. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 14 Mar., 2023; CCEd 14 Mar. 2023; LBS; Morning Post 10 Feb. 1801; MH 14 Dec. 1821; Vere Langford Oliver, The History of the Island of Antigua [1894-99], 3: 280-4) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. G. Sewell
- Mrs. Sewell
- Mary Young