Sewell, Henry (1807-1879), was a lawyer and politician who served as the colonial secretary and premier, or prime minister, of New Zealand. He served for only two weeks before being replaced by William Fox. During his time in office, New Zealand was a colony of the United Kingdom.
Early life and family.
Sewell was born on Sept. 7, 1807, in Newport, England, on the Isle of Wight. In 1826, he qualified to become a solicitor (lawyer), and he joined his father’s law practice. On May 15, 1834, he married Lucinda Marianne Nedham, the daughter of a British general. The couple had six children before Lucinda’s death on July 28, 1844.
Sewell’s father died in 1842, leaving large debts. In the late 1840’s, Sewell sold half of the family law practice and moved to London. In 1848, he joined the Canterbury Association, an Anglican organization that hoped to found a traditional English settlement in New Zealand. In 1850, he became deputy chairman of the Canterbury Association.
On Jan. 23, 1850, Sewell married Elizabeth Kittoe, whose mother was a close friend of Sewell’s mother. In December of that year, the Canterbury Association founded the settlement of Christchurch, New Zealand. Though Sewell remained in England, he worked to secure loans for the association and purchased land in New Zealand.
In 1852, Sewell sailed for New Zealand in the company of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Wakefield was a cofounder of the Canterbury Association who had earlier formed the New Zealand Association (later the New Zealand Company) to promote British colonization in New Zealand. The two men arrived in Lyttelton, in New Zealand’s South Island, on Feb. 2, 1853.
Political career.
In 1853, Sewell was elected to New Zealand’s General Assembly, a legislative body created by New Zealand’s Constitution Act of 1852. He represented Christchurch in the House of Representatives, which began meeting in May 1854.
Sewell strongly supported the idea of responsible government—that is, the idea that the head of government should be responsible to a legislative assembly elected by the people. At a meeting of New Zealand’s General Assembly on June 2, 1854, Wakefield put forward a resolution calling for such a government. At that time, New Zealand’s provincial governor decided he did not have the authority to replace the British-appointed government without British approval. Instead, he called Sewell and two other members of the House to serve as unofficial members of the Executive Council, an appointed group of high officials who advised the colonial governor. However, the three House members resigned from these new positions several weeks later, after it became clear that the responsible government system had not yet been fully implemented.
Sewell remained as a member of the House, and he introduced a number of financial and legal bills over the next few years. Responsible government took effect in 1856. Sewell officially joined the Executive Council in April. He was soon chosen to form a government, and on May 7, he took office as prime minister and colonial secretary, a position that acted as chief aide to the colonial governor. However, on May 20 he was replaced by his political rival, William Fox.
Fox’s administration lasted only a week, and he was in turn replaced by Edward William Stafford. Sewell served as treasurer of the colony twice under Stafford, from June to November of 1856 and again from February to April of 1859. In 1856, Sewell drafted an agreement between the governments of the colony of New Zealand and the province of Canterbury. This agreement, sometimes called the Compact of 1856, defined the economic relationship between the colony and the province.
For many years after his brief tenure as prime minister, Sewell remained in politics in a number of official and unofficial positions. His primary concern during this period involved the relationship between the colonists and the native Māori << MOW ree or MAH ree >> people. As the colonists’ demand for Māori land grew, disputes over land ownership became more frequent. Sewell sought to deal with Māori through compromise rather than by force. He also unsuccessfully attempted to establish a form of Māori self-government.
In 1873, Sewell retired from politics. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1876. He died in Cambridge on May 14, 1879.
