R. B. Seymour Sewell


Robert Beresford Seymour Sewell CIE FRS FLS FZS was a British military doctor who served with the Indian Medical Service and an amateur naturalist, editor of The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma 1933-1963.
Sewell was born in 1880 in Leamington, Warwickshire. His father was the reverend Arthur Sewell, and his mother was Mary Lee. His grandfather was Robert Burleigh Sewell, who had a number of notable siblings, including Richard Clarke Sewell, William Sewell, Henry Sewell, James Edwards Sewell, and Elizabeth Missing Sewell. He studied at Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1902 and qualified M.C.R.S. & L.R.C.P. in 1907.
He was commissioned into the Indian Medical Service as a Lieutenant 1 February 1908 and was promoted Captain 1 February 1911.
He served during the First World War and was Mentioned in Dispatches in the London Gazette 6 July 1917.
He was promoted Major 1 August 1919 and Lieutenant-Colonel 1 August 1927.
His last appointment was as Director of the Zoological Survey of India from 17 July 1925 to his retirement.
He retired 5 March 1935.
He was a freemason, having been initiated in 1912.