CHARLOTTE SOPHIA ‘SOPHIE’ SANDALL (OS 1887-95)
Thoroughly modern Sophie Year 12 DofE volunteer, Kasia Middleton, read Thomas Sandall’s memoirs to uncover the story of his remarkable daughter, Sophie. Images supplied by: Karen Meadows, www.waterfurlonggardens.com
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harlotte Sophia ‘Sophie’ Sandall was the fourth child and only daughter of Thomas Sandall and Constance Boémé. Born on June 8, 1878, her baptism took place at St Michael’s, Stamford, and she was named after her two grandmothers. Her father was a respectable pillar of the Stamfordian community. He attended Stamford School, as did all his sons, and was the manager of what is today the High Street branch of Lloyds Bank. He was also borough treasurer for a significant length of time, and his philanthropic and community deeds are recorded in his personal memoirs from 1858 to his death in 1922. In this diary, Sophie appears many times. She led a privileged existence, and travelled extensively with her family, enjoying summers on the continent, in Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Wight. Despite there being limited coverage of Sophie’s Stamford career recorded in her father’s diary, he shows a lot of interest in the Schools’ community. He was a founding member of
Sophie and Thomas at tea, 1917
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the “Old Stamfordians’ Club” in 1889 and advocated for a revival of the Stamfordian magazine at a club dinner in 1898. Much later, Thomas Sandall became a supporter of the conversion of St Paul’s Church into the school chapel we know today, as a memorial for all the Stamfordians who lost their lives in the Great War, and was a patron of this transformation. This is evidenced in a 1917 newspaper cutting, which also mentions a new name: the ‘Stamford Endowed Schools’. Sophie and her father lived together until he died in 1922, so one imagines that Sophie’s connection to the School endured with her father’s. She appears in SHS magazines several times up until her death in 1967, chairing meetings of Old Stamfordians and presenting awards for swimming competitions. Aside from her holidaying in her father’s diary, we know very little about Sophie’s childhood except that she attended SHS from 1887 to 1895 and showed a great aptitude for languages.