John Edwin Sandys
Sir
John Edwin Sandys (
19 May,
1844–
6 July,
1922), was a
classical scholar.
He was born at
Leicester on
19 May 1844, a son of the Reverend Timothy Sandys of the
Church Missionary Society and Rebecca (
née Swain). Living at first in
India, he returned to
England at the age of eleven, and was educated at the Church Missionary Society School in
Islington, then at
Repton School. In 1863 he won a
scholarship to
St John's College,
Cambridge.
He obtained a Bell scholarship and won several prizes for
Greek and
Latin prose. In 1867 he was elected Fellow at his college, and 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 in 1892,
Edinburgh in 1909,
Athens in 1912 and
Oxford in 1920. He was made a Fellow of the
British Academy in 1909, and a Commander in the Greek
Order of the Saviour. He was awarded his knighthood in 1911.
He wrote a number of books on Greek oratory, and a book on his travels in Greece, but is best known for the
History of Classical Scholarship.
In 1880 he had married Mary Grainger, the daughter of the
vicar of
St Paul's Church, Cambridge. They had no children. He died on
6 July 1922 at Cambridge.
Source:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
