Thomas Sandby, and engraved on copper by his brother Paul and the best engravers of the day. They were republished by Boydell in 1772. A number of the original plans and designs for these works are preserved at Windsor Castle and the Soane Museum. George III, who took great interest in the undertaking, honoured Sandby with his confidence and personal friendship, and on the death of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in 1765, the king's brother, Henry Frederick (also Duke of Cumberland, and ranger of the park), retained Sandby as deputy.
Although devoted to his work at Windsor and preferring a retired life, it was Sandby's custom to spend a portion of each year in London. He rented a house in Great Marlborough Street from 1760 to 1766. He was one of the committee of the St. Martin's Lane school, which issued a pamphlet in 1755 proposing the formation of an academy of art, and he exhibited drawings at the Society of Artists' exhibition in 1767, and afterwards for some years at the Royal Academy. Both he and his brother Paul were among the twenty-eight of the original members of the Royal Academy who were nominated by George III in 1768. He was elected the first professor of architecture to the academy, and delivered the first of a series of six lectures in that capacity on Monday, 8 Oct. 1770. The sixth was illustrated by about forty drawings of buildings, ancient and modern, including original designs for a ‘Bridge of Magnificence,’ which attracted much attention. He continued these lectures with alterations and additions annually till his death. They were never published, but the manuscript is in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The illustrations were sold with his other drawings after his death.
In February 1769 he competed for the Royal Exchange at Dublin, and obtained the third premium, 40l. (see Builder, 2 Oct. 1869). As far as can now be discovered, his only architectural work in London was Freemasons' Hall in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was opened with great ceremony on 23 May 1776, when the title of ‘Grand Architect’ was conferred on Sandby (see Britton and Pugin's Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London). The building was partially destroyed by fire on 3 May 1883, but has since been restored. Sandby designed a carved oak altar-screen for St. George's Chapel, Windsor, now replaced by a reredos, and a stone bridge over the Thames at Staines, opened in 1796, but removed a few years afterwards on account of its insecurity. He built several houses in the neighbourhood of Windsor, including St. Leonard's Hill for the Duchess of Gloucester, and one for Colonel Deacon, now known as Holly Grove. Designs exist for many others of his architectural works which cannot now be identified. In 1777 he was appointed, jointly with James Adam [q. v.], architect of his majesty's works, and in 1780 master-carpenter of the same in England. Sandby died at the deputy ranger's lodge in Windsor Park on Monday, 25 June 1798. He was buried in the churchyard of Old Windsor.
Sandby was twice married. The name of his first wife is stated to have been Schultz. His second wife was Elizabeth Venables (1733–1782), to whom he was married on 26 April 1753. She had a dowry of 2,000l., and bore him ten children, six of whom (five daughters and one son) survived him. It is to be observed that in his will, and in some simple verses addressed to his daughters after their mother's death, he names four only, Harriott, Charlotte, Maria, and Ann, omitting his eldest girl, Elizabeth, who was twice married, and is said to have died about 1809 (see William Sandby's Thomas and Paul Sandby, pp. 176–80). His daughter Harriott married (1786) Thomas Paul, the second son of his brother Paul, and kept house for her father after her mother's death. Eight of her thirteen children were born at the deputy ranger's lodge.
Though he was self-educated as an architect, and left few buildings by which his capacity can be tested, the hall of the freemasons shows no ordinary taste, while of his skill as an engineer and landscape-gardener Windsor Great Park and Virginia Water are a permanent record. He was an excellent and versatile draughtsman, and so skilful in the use of watercolour that his name deserves to be associated with that of his brother Paul in the history of that branch of art.
[Sandby's Thomas and Paul Sandby, 1892.]
SANDMAN, ROBERT (1718–1771), Scottish sectary, eldest son of David Sandeman, merchant and magistrate (1735–63) of Perth, was born at Perth in 1718. After being apprenticed at Perth as a linen-weaver, he studied a session or two at Edinburgh University. While hesitating between medicine and the church as his future profession, he came under the influence of John Glas [q. v.], whose religious views he adopted. Returning to Perth in 1736, he married in the following year Glas's daughter Katharine (d. 1746), and entered into partnership with
