SANDYS, Hon. Edwin (1726-97), of Ombersley, Worcs.

On 21 Mar. 1754 Sandys was listed by Newcastle as candidate for Bossiney: the seat cost £1,500, of which Sandys was to pay £1,200.Add. 32995, ff. 110-13. He was returned unopposed. He was included in Newcastle’s list of July 1760 of persons to be brought into Parliament at the next general election, but without the urgent mark ‘absolutely’, and disappears from the later shorter lists. General Cornwallis, when appointed governor of Gibraltar, named Sandys to Newcastle for his constituency of Westminster. Newcastle approached Bedford who had considerable electoral interest in the borough—‘Mr. Sandys’, he wrote, 8 Apr. 1762, ‘is a worthy young man, and would be a useful laborious Member; and there is a great deal to be done by a Member for Westminster; but whether of dignity enough or ... agreeable to the court I won’t pretend to say.’ Bedford replied that anyone acceptable to the King would be acceptable to him. The King hesitated; would have preferred Lord Titchfield; finally Sandys was put up and returned unopposed.Add. 32936, f. 432, 438; 32937, ff. 40, 306.

Sandys was included in Henry Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries. But in the autumn of 1763 Jenkinson classed him as an opponent of the Grenville Administration, and he voted with the Opposition on Wilkes and general warrants. Rockingham in July 1765, classed Sandys as a supporter of his Administration. Sandys voted with Administration on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767 and on Wilkes and the Middlesex election, 1769-1770. He is not known to have spoken in the House.

He died ‘immensely rich’,Gent. Mag. 1797, p. 255. 11 Mar. 1797. The Gentleman’s Magazine wrote about him in 1800 (p. 59): ‘[he] had no great judgement of his own, but was easily guided; very conversant in English history and forms of Parliament, especially of the House of Commons, which he constantly attended while a Member’.