Major General Tim Toyne Sewell
Chair, United World Colleges, UK
Tim Toyne Sewell was educated at Bedford School and The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was commissioned into The King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) in 1961 and served in Aden before training as an army helicopter pilot and flying for four years. He then returned to the KOSB for several tours in Northern Ireland. He served on the personal staff of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin, then chief of defence staff, from 1979-81before commanding his regiment in Germany
On promotion to the rank of colonel, he went to the Falkland Islands in 1984 as chief of staff to the British Forces. He then commanded 19th Infantry Brigade in Colchester from 1985-7. He went to Zimbabwe in 1989 to advise and train the armies of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
In 1991 he was promoted and appointed commandant of The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He resigned from the Army in 1994 to take up the appointment of director of Goodenough College, a college for international postgraduates in London.
He retired again in July 2006 and became chairman of United World Colleges, a group of 13 international sixth form colleges whose students, from 125 nations, take the International Baccalaureate.
He founded the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition (now named the London International Violin Competition) in 2002. He is also chairman of the Kyiv Festival. He is a life governor of Haileybury and he is a deputy lieutenant of Greater London and a Freeman of the City.
