Sir John Edwin Sandys ( "Sands"; 19 May 1844 – 6 July 1922) was an English

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

Life

Born in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

, England on 19 May 1844, Sandys was the 4th son of Rev. Timothy Sandys (1803–1871) and Rebecca Swain (1800–1853). Living at first in India, Sandys returned to England at the age of eleven, and was educated at the Church Missionary Society College, Islington, then at

Repton School Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, independent, day and boarding school in the English public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England. Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school whi ...

. In 1863, he won a scholarship to

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...

. On 17 August 1880, John married Mary Grainger Hall (1855–1937), daughter of Rev. Henry Hall (1820–1897),

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

of St Paul's Church in Cambridge. Mary was born in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, and she died in Vevey, Switzerland, where at the time of her death she was a resident of the Hotel du Lac. She made a bequest to the

Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge The Museum of Classical Archaeology is a museum in Cambridge, run by the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge, England. Since 1983, it has been located in a purpose-built gallery on the first floor of the Faculty of Classics on th ...

(founded in 1884) which was the basis of a fund known as the Museum of Classical Archaeology Endowment Fund. John and Mary had no children. Sandys died on 6 July 1922 in Cambridge. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.

Works

Besides editing several Greek texts, Sandys published: ''An Easter Vacation in Greece'' (1886); a translation and enlargement (with H. Nettleship) of Oskar Seyffert's ''A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, Mythology, Religion, Literature and Art'' (1891); and ''The Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning'' (1905). He is best known, however, for his ''A History of Classical Scholarship'' (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press) (3 vols.) (vol. 1, 1903; vols. 2 and 3, 1908). He was also supervising editor of ''A Companion to Latin Studies'' (1910; 2nd ed., 1913).

Recognition

Sandys obtained a Bell Scholarship and won several prizes for

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

prose. In 1867, he was elected Fellow at his college and was appointed to a lectureship, then later also a tutorship. He was elected public orator in 1876, and was given the title ''orator emeritus'' when he retired in 1919. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

(1892),

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

(1909),

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

(1912) and

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

(1920). He was made a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars s ...

(1909)British Academy Fellowship record
and a Commander in the Greek Order of the Saviour. He was knighted in 1911.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sandys, John Edwin 1844 births 1922 deaths People from Leicester People educated at Repton School Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge Cambridge University Orators Fellows of the British Academy Knights Bachelor English classical scholars Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of classics Alumni of the Church Missionary Society College, Islington Latin epigraphers English male writers