Samuel Sandars

Samuel Sandars (25 April 1837, Chelmsford, Essex - 15 June 1894^[1]) was an English bibliographer, barrister and university benefactor.

MP for Wakefield.  He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his BA degree in 1860 and became MA in 1863. Admitted to the Inner Temple in 1859, Sandars was called to the Bar in 1863.[2] In July 1863 Sandars married Elizabeth Maria, eldest daughter of Francis William Russell, MP for Limerick.[3]

Sandars was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Library Association and a member of the Bibliographical Society.^[1] He became JP for Buckinghamshire, and shortly before his death in 1894 High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire.^[1]

From 1869 onwards Sandars donated rare books to Cambridge University Library; he bequeathed 1,460 printed books to the library on his death.^[4][5] He was also a benefactor to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Great St Mary's Church and the Divinity School in Cambridge,^[6] and bequeathed £2000 to Cambridge University to endow the Sandars Readership in Bibliography for the delivery of one or more lectures annually on "Bibliography, Palaeography, Typography, Bookbinding, Book Illustration, the science of Books and Manuscripts and the Arts relating thereto."^[7]

References

1. Obituary, The Library, Vol. s1-6, No. 1, 1894, p. 289
2. Venn, J. A., Sandars, Samuel, Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part II Vol. V, p. 411
3. Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 215, 1863, p. 236
4. Collections Directory
5. Fabian, Bernhard, Handbuch deutscher historischer Buchbestände in Europa, 1997, p. 178
6. Rupp, Gordon, 'A Cambridge Centenary: The Selwyn Divinity School. 1879-1979', The Historical Journal 24:2 (1981). p. 426
7. Clark, J. W., Endowments of the University of Cambridge, 1904

Further reading

• The Cambridge Review, 1894

External links

• Sandars family tree
• Samuel Sandars: Book Lists and Cambridge Miscellanea at Cambridge University Library
• The Sandars Readership in Bibliography