Sir Samuel Sandys was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1586 and 1622.
Biography
Sandys was the eldest surviving son of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, by his second wife Cecily Wilford. He was admitted to Merchant Taylors' School in April 1571, with his younger brothersEdwin and Miles. He entered the Middle Temple in 1579. He acquired the lease of the royal manor of Ombersley, Worcestershire in 1582. He was elected Member of Parliament for Ripon in 1586, and succeeded to the property of his father in 1588. Although he initially lived in Essex, where his mother held land – his eldest son was baptised at Woodham Ferrers in 1591 – he settled at Ombersley thereafter, purchased the manor of Wickhamford, Worcestershire in 1594, and purchased the manor of Ombersley from the Crown for £2,000 in 1614. He was a JP for Worcestershire from 1597, and was knighted by King James I at Whitehall on 23 July 1603. He was elected MP for Worcestershire in a by-election in 1609, re-elected in 1614 and 1621. By 1621, John Chamberlain numbered Sandys among the four chief speakers in the Commons. He often spoke in debates on electoral disputes, and raised matters of parliamentary procedure. In the Commons, Sandys often worked with his brother Sir Edwin Sandys, especially on colonial matters and international trade. Sir Samuel was a prominent member of the Virginia Company, of which Sir Edwin was treasurer, and its spin-off, the Somers Isles Company. A member of the Virginia committee from 1612, Sir Samuel was interested in the tobacco trade, the mainstay of Virginia's economy. He was High Sheriff of Worcestershire 1618–1619, and a member of the council in the marches of Wales in 1623. Sandys died on 18 August 1623, at the age of 62, and was buried at Wickhamford, Worcestershire. His eldest son and heir, Sir Edwin Sandys, died three weeks later. Father and son, and their wives, are cast in alabaster effigy in their funerary monument in Wickhamford church.
Family
Sandys married Mercy Culpepper at Southwell, Nottinghamshire in 1586. They had four sons and seven daughters:
Collins states wrongly that Elizabeth married secondly George Walsh. Elsewhere Collins states correctly that it was Elizabeth's daughter Mercy Pytts, married firstly Henry Bromley, who married secondly George Walsh.
