Sewell, Bill - An Obituary

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Origins[1]

Bill Sewell

On 26th April 2018, the Heritage Centre lost a dear friend, benefactor and life member with the death of Bill Sewell, an unrivalled authority on the North British Railway. In the final year of his life, the Heritage Centre was delighted to re-issue his seminal work, The North British Railway in Northumberland, first published in 1992 and the first of his seven books on this gem of a railway. The Centre also supported the publication of three new volumes of his collected articles, which were brought out just before his death.

In honour of Bill Sewell, and also to mark the 160th anniversary of the Border Counties Railway, which opened from Hexham to Chollerford on 5th April 1858, the Heritage Centre mounted a special summer exhibition, which included a number of Bill's superb models of NBR engines, carriages and wagons, along with some of his technical drawings. Over 30 years, Bill had produced scale models of about 40 engines, 40 coaches and 140 wagons, built from scratch to his own detailed technical drawings, which he scaled down from the original plans: works of art in miniature.

George W M Sewell, known as Bill, was born in 1927 in Huddersfield. Both farming and engineering were in his blood. The family of his father, George senior, farmed near Penrith but the farm had to be sold following a death and his father trained as an engineer, eventually becoming a Director and Chief Mechanical Engineer of Hopkinsons in Huddersfield, makers of steam valves. Bill was often taken to the factory where both his father and the foremen took time to explain how things worked.

Aged 17, Bill went to King's College in Newcastle to study agriculture but his studies were interrupted in 1945 by army service, most of which he spent in Wiltshire as a Sergeant running courses in technical gunnery, honing his skills in mathematics, surveying and trigonometry. He resumed his studies in 1948 and graduated in 1950. In the same year, he married Margaret and the couple started farming in the Lake District, moving two years later to a larger farm in Holderness, East Yorkshire, where they had two children, Jane and Andrew.

The family farmed until the early 1980s during which time Bill, always adept at making things, single-handedly built one of the first grain dryers in East Yorkshire and installed a central heating system in the farmhouse. He retained, however, a keen interest in steam engineering from his childhood association with Hopkinsons and in retirement he turned his hand to making models of all the rolling stock which ran on the Border Counties Railway, taking over part of the garden to create a landscape in miniature of the line. After a move to Redburn in Northumberland in 1985, Bill spent four years researching his first book, a comprehensive history of The North British Railway in Northumberland, which was based on original source documentation. He subsequently wrote three other volumes about the line’s rolling stock and published numerous articles on railway history. He wrote three other volumes about the line’s rolling stock and published numerous articles on railway history.

Image fo Jim Sewell's final three books

Even on a first meeting, Bill was a man you felt you had known, or ought to have known, all your life. He had an instantly endearing quality. You felt that a joke or witty observation was about to break out at any moment and you were not to be disappointed. He was a true scholar of the North British Railway in Northumberland, a distinguished authority and a meticulous writer. He was a life member of the Heritage Centre in Bellingham to which he had given his support since its foundation in 1994. He lived to see his monumental North British Railway republished, as well as the printing of three new books on the North British Railway. We will miss our scholar and friend but his reputation and legacy will endure. The Valley of the North Tyne has the name of Bill Sewell running through it and, like the North British Railway, is a permanent memorial to him. He was a successful farmer, with a fascination for the mechanical, academic and practical, but it was the North British Railway that fired, above all, his powers of academic research, technical drawing and practical construction.

Bill had a genuine and welcoming personality, with an ever present twinkle in his eye.

It was also an eye for detail and precision, whether in his research or his technical drawings, which are works of art and make his books really special. He would not let a casual turn of phrase or inaccuracy slip past unnoticed or unchallenged, and it was an exhilarating and unforgettable experience to be in his presence. We will remember his life, read his legacy and relish his scholarship.

Publications

  1. The North British Railway in Northumberland 1992; 2nd edition 1993; reissued 2018
  2. N.B.R. Wagons – Some design aspects 1998; reissued 2017
  3. N.B.R. Coaches – A design review 2000; reissued 2016
  4. N.B.R. Locomotives – A design survey 2002; reissued 2017
  5. Northumberland Railway Reflections Volume 1 Tracks and Traffic 2018
  6. Northumberland Railway Reflections Volume 2 Commercial Considerations 2018
  7. Northumberland Railway Reflections Volume 3 Accidents and Anecdotes 2018


The first book cover - produced by Bill Sewell in 1992

References

  1. The original citation is the February 2019 Newsletter to friends of the Heritage Centre. The article was written by Stan Owen