Career
He served as Paymaster-General between 1892 and 1895 in the Liberal administrations of William Ewart Gladstone and the Earl of Rosebery. He served under William Ewart Gladstone and later the Earl of Rosebery as Paymaster-General from 1892 to 1895 and was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1892. Apart from his political career he was also the first Chairman of the Dartmouth and Torbay Railway.
Seale-Hayne died in November 1903, aged 70, in Mayfair, London, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.
In his will he endowed a farming and food science college near Newton Abbot. Seale-Hayne College opened in 1919, later becoming part of the University of Plymouth.