in consequence of the prince regent having promised the Marchioness of Hertford that Colonel Sir Francis Hastings Doyle should have the first vacancy. By way of compensation Sedgwick was appointed examiner of the droits of admiralty accounts, with his previous salary of 1,500l. a year. He was promoted by patent, dated 25 Aug. 1817, to be chairman of the board of stamps. At the beginning of 1818 he conducted an inquiry into the conduct of the stamp revenue in Scotland, and discovered great abuses. His effort to secure the permanent dismissal of the officer to whom the disorder was attributable proved, to his irritation, unsuccessful. At the same time he gave offence to Lord Liverpool and the government by printing ‘Observations’ on the position of affairs and engaging in controversy in the ‘Morning Chronicle’ respecting the inquiry. His fourteen letters were reissued in the form of three pamphlets. When, in 1826, the board of stamps was dissolved, he alone of all the members was denied a pension. In 1828, however, he received a small retiring allowance of 400l. a year. Henceforth he had a grievance, and the greater part of his life was spent in memorialising successive administrations or petitioning parliament. In 1845 he published another series of ‘Letters addressed to Lord Granville Somerset and others’ on ‘The Dissolution of the Board of Stamps, with Strictures on the Conduct of Sir John Easthope as proprietor of the “Morning Chronicle.”’ The ‘Morning Chronicle’ had ceased to print his complaints. He was a director of the County Fire Office. He died, from the effects of a fall, on 26 Jan. 1851 at his house, 3 Church Street, Kensington. He was married and left one daughter.
Besides the works already mentioned, Sedgwick wrote: 1. ‘An Abridgment of the Modern Determinations in the Courts of Law and Equity,’ being a supplement to C. Viner's ‘Abridgment,’ 1799. 2. ‘Remarks on the Commentaries of Sir W. Blackstone,’ 1800; 2nd edit. 1804. Under the signature of ‘A Barrister’ he published: 3. ‘Hints to the Public on the Nature of Evangelical Preaching,’ 1808; 2nd edit. 1812: this work was replied to by W. B. Collyer, 1809. 4. ‘A Letter to the Ratepayers of Great Britain on the Repeal of the Poor Laws,’ to which is subjoined the outline of a plan for the abolition of the poor rates at the end of three years, 1833. Sedgwick edited the sixth edition of Sir G. Gilbert's ‘Law of Evidence,’ 1801. He is said to have conducted the ‘Oxford Review’ January 1807 to March 1808—fifteen monthly numbers.
[Gent. Mag. April, 1851, pp. 436–7; Times, 30 Jan. 1851, p. 4; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 310.]
SEDGWICK, OBADIAH (1600?–1658), puritan divine, son of Joseph Sedgwick, vicar of St. Peter's, Marlborough, Wiltshire, afterwards of Ogbourne St. Andrew, Wiltshire, was born at Marlborough about 1600. He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, on 18 June 1619, aged 19, removed thence to Magdalen Hall, and graduated B.A. on 5 May 1620, M.A. 23 Jan. 1623. He was tutor (1626) to Sir Matthew Hale [q. v.] Having taken orders, he became chaplain to Horatio, baron Vere of Tilbury [q. v.], whom he accompanied to the Low Countries. Returning to Oxford, he commenced B.D. on 16 Jan. 1630. His first preferment (1630) in the church was as lecturer at St. Mildred's, Bread Street, London, where his puritanism got him into trouble. On 6 July 1639 he was presented by Robert Rich, second earl of Warwick [q. v.], to the vicarage of Coggeshall, Essex, in succession to John Dod. On the opening of the Long parliament he regained his lectureship at St. Mildred's, and became a preacher against episcopacy. Wood says that he used 'in hot weather to unbutton his doublet in the pulpit, that his breath might be the longer.' In the autumn of 1642 he was chaplain to the regiment of foot raised by Denzil Holles [q. v.] He was a member of the Westminster Assembly (1643), and in the same year was appointed a licenser of the press. On 6 Oct. 1643 he spoke at the Guildhall in favour of the league with Scotland for the prosecution of the war, and his speech was published in 'Foure Speeches,' 1646, 4to. In a sermon of September 1644 he preached for 'cutting off delinquents.' He held for a short time the rectory of St Andrew's, Holborn, on the sequestration (13 Dec. 1645) of John Hacket [q. v.]; but next year (before May 1646) he was appointed to the rectory of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and resigned Coggeshall where John Owen (1616-1683) [q. v.] succeeded him (18 Aug.) He was a member of the eleventh London classis in the parliamentary presbyterianism; but his ecclesiastical views were not rigid, for on 20 March 1654 he was appointed one of Cromwell's 'triers,' and in August of the same year was a clerical assistant to the 'expurgators.' His health failing, he resigned St Paul's in 1656, and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Thomas Manton [q. v.] He was a man of property, being lord of the manor of Ashmansworth, Hampshire. Retiring to Marlborough, he died there at the beginning of January 1658, and was buried
