John Sandys

John Sandys (d. 1803) came from the Baptist congregation at Tottlebank. He was a student at J. C. Ryland’s Academy at Northampton in the late 1760s and studied in London under William Clarke (with assistance from the Particular Baptist Fund) before entering the ministry. While in London, he attended Clarke’s congregation at Unicorn Yard. According to the Unicorn Yard Church Book, he joined on Monday, 11 March 1771, signing the Church Book on 25 June 1772 and on 25 March 1773. He left shortly afterwards to serve as a tutor in John Fawcett’s school at Hebden Bridge before supplying as interim pastor for the Baptist congregation in Shrewsbury, just prior to the arrival of John Sutcliff in the summer of 1774. Many in the congregation, however, remained loyal to Sandys, and by January 1775 Sutcliff had resigned. Sandys was then called as pastor early in 1777. An entry in the Unicorn Yard Church Book for 6 April 1777 adds some details concerning Sandys’s call: “The Church being stayd after the Celebration of the Supper a Letter received from the Church, at Shrewsbury, requesting the Dismission of Bror John Sandys with a View to take the pastoral care of them was read & assented to & a Letter dismissing him from us then being drawn up & read was signd by each Bror Present.” Sandys remained at Shrewsbury until 1781, erecting a new meetinghouse in Dog Lane while he was there. Sandys did not leave on the best of terms, for some members of his church (in league, unfortunately, with some other Baptist ministers) accused Sandys of improper conduct regarding a £50 note which had been stolen from him during a trip to Birmingham in the fall of 1780. Left destitute by the theft, Sandys received £25.5 from his friend Robert Mosely, a deacon at Cannon Street in Birmingham. Mosely told Sandys to use the funds however he wanted. Sandys inquired of William Clarke, his former tutor in London, if he was responsible for repaying the £50 note to the Shrewsbury church, and Clarke told him he was not. As a result, Sandys, whose salary at Shrewsbury was only £34 a year, used the money for himself, which angered many of his members who believed the money belonged to the church. For the next two years, accusations of impropriety continued to plague Sandys (who was considered as a replacement for James Turner at Cannon Street in Birmingham in 1781). He applied to several London ministers, who, in collaboration with Mosely, cleared Sandys of any misuse of funds, an action that supposedly satisfied the Shrewsbury church. In the meantime, Sandys assisted in churches in Colchester and Adelphi. From 1786 to 1791 he served as pastor of the Baptist church in Beechen Grove, Watford, Hertfordshire. In 1791 Sandys became Isaac Gould’s assistant at Fore Street, Harlow. Not long after his arrival in Harlow, new accusations concerning the Mosely affair surfaced once again, creating an unwelcome distraction for Sandys. In 1793, John Martin, Baptist minister at Grafton Square (later Keppel Street), London, published several letters by Mosely and John Harwood (also a deacon at Cannon Street), as well as letters by Martin himself to Henry Keene, a deacon at Maze Pond, in an effort to clear Sandys’s name once and for all. After the death of Isaac Gould in November 1794, Sandys took over pastoral duties at Fore Street, but, as Finch notes, his temperament did not suit many in the congregation; he stayed for less than a year before removing to Hammersmith, where he began a new work at Brentford Park in June 1799. By 1802 he was no longer pastor, which may have been due to declining health, for he died c. 1803. See Unicorn Yard Church Book, 1719-1820, MS., Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford, f. 214r, f. 219r, f. 222r, f. 237v; William Jones,  Autobiography of the Late William Jones, M.A. (London: J. Snow, 1846), 13; W. T. Whitley, The Baptists of London 1612–1928 (London: Kingsgate Press, 1928), 108; Thomas Finch, Brief Biographical Memorials, of the Ministers and Proceedings of the Protestant Dissenting Congregation, of the Baptist Denomination, Harlow, Essex (Bishop’s Stortford: W. Thorogood, 1820), 41-42; G. H. Young and J. W. Barker, A Short History of Harlow Baptist Church 1662 1962 (Harlow: Harlow Baptist Church, 1962), 10-11; Michael A. G. Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, His Friends and his Times (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 1994), 85-86, 90; Claremont Baptist Church, Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury: [n.p.], 1920), 4; Edward Spurrier, Memorials of the Baptist Church Worshipping at Eld Lane Chapel, Colchester (Colchester: F. Wright, 1889) 37, 40; R. F. Skinner, Nonconformity in Shropshire 1662-1816 (Shrewsbury: Wilding & Son, 1964) 25-28; John Rippon, ed., Baptist Annual Register, vol. 3 (1798-1801), p. 23; John Martin, The Case of the Rev. John Sandys, a Dissenting Minister, at Harlow, Essex. In Four Letters to Henry Keene, Esquire (London: J. Martin, Jr., and William Button, 1793); for letters by J. C. Ryland and John Sandys, concerning Sandys’s application to the Particular Baptist Fund in 1769-1770 for financial assistance during his time of study with William Clarke in London, see Congregational Library, London, MSS. ii. c. 5 and MSS. ii. A. 10, ff. 31-41.