Lord Sandford RIP

Kyt · Jan 23, 2009

Lord Sandford: seaman, clergyman, politician and conservationist | Times Online Obituary

The Swiss were puzzled when Lord Sandford first appeared on the slopes at Davos as a member of the British team in the Inter-Parliamentary Ski Championships. He was entered as Commander the Rev Lord Sandford and further identified as a Conservative Whip in the House of Lords. How could he be all these things, asked the Swiss. It was soon evident, from a glance at the practice slopes, that there was yet more to the tall, slim, athletic peer: he was a threat to the long-established superiority of the Swiss in the downhill race.

Sandford’s childhood was spent in beautiful country houses, first at Goring-on-Thames and then at Sandford St Martin, in Oxfordshire. As a boy, he learnt to ski, to sail, to shoot, to ride, to fish and to appreciate conservation both in buildings and wildlife. He was a patrician figure belonging to a class and generation who saw work in Parliament and in the voluntary services almost as a social obligation.

John Cyril Edmondson was the elder son of the 1st Baron Sandford, who was raised to the peerage in the Dissolution Honours of 1945. As Sir Albert Edmondson, his father had sat as Tory MP for Banbury for 23 years and been Deputy Chief Whip in Winston Churchill’s coalition Government, from 1942 to 1945. His wife, Edith Freeman was the sister of Sir Ralph Freeman, of the international engineering and construction firm of Freeman Fox.

The Edmondsons were originally farmers in Cumbria who had moved into the building trade there a century ago. Later they moved their business to Hertfordshire. As the Metropolitan Railway advanced into the countryside, the Edmondsons contributed to the building of new communities in the London commuter belt. They amassed a considerable fortune, especially James Edmondson, John Edmondson’s grandfather.

After prep school in Eastbourne, John Edmondson went to Eton where he rowed and made it into Pop. His first serious interest was in civil engineering. However, when he left Eton in 1938, his father, feeling that war was close, advised the Services instead, telling his son that some training and experience in advance was advisable in the event of conscription. He was accepted as a late entrant at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

During the Second World War he served in the cruiser Ajax in the Mediterranean, taking part in operations against the Italian Navy and convoys to beleaguered Malta. As gunnery officer of the destroyer Eskimo he was awarded the DSC for his courage, skill and leadership after an action in May 1943 during the blockade that prevented Axis forces from escaping from Tunisia to Europe after their defeat in North Africa.

A year later, in 1944, he was second-in-command of the “Hunt” class destroyer Cattistock when that ship was one of the first to arrive off the Normandy beaches on D-Day, escorting minesweepers and providing gunfire support for Gold Beach. On August 29 in an action against German vessels escaping from Le Havre, Cattistock was badly damaged, her captain killed and Edmondson wounded.

After the war he was appointed to the destroyer Saumarez and was again wounded during the notorious Corfu incident when two British destroyers were badly damaged by mines laid illegally by Albania. Although Britain was awarded a large sum in damages by the International Court of The Hague, it has never been paid.

Later Sandford was posted to HMS Mercury, the naval signal school at East Meon, where he met his wife, Second Officer Catharine Hunt, WRNS, daughter of the Rev Oswald Hunt. Appointed to the post of House Officer at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he added to his sporting activities by becoming master of the Britannia Beagles.

Edmondson subsequently served in the light carrier Vengeance, the cruiser Cleopatra and from 1953 to 1955 was Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Sir Charles Lamb, C-in-C Far East Fleet. His final appointment, as second-in-command of the submarine depot ship Tyne, at that time Home Fleet flagship, was shortened by ill health.

It was then that Sandford decided to pursue a vocation in the Church of England. He trained at Westcott House, Cambridge, and on ordination was appointed curate at St Nicholas’s Church, Harpenden, in 1958. He ministered there for five years before becoming executive chaplain to the Bishop of St Albans and, at the same time, chairman of the Hertfordshire Council of Social Services.

When a vacancy occurred for a rector at St Alphege’s, Greenwich, he set his heart on it; he was familiar with the area and knew a number of people there. But the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood, told him bluntly to “forget it”. Sandford had succeeded to his father’s title in 1959 and the bishop’s left-wing views were well-known: “I can’t have a peer as rector in a parish full of dockers,” he said. Sandford was hurt.

For a time, he continued with his ministry in Hertfordshire, serving at the same time as a Tory whip in the House of Lords. Then, in 1970, Edward Heath made him a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at Housing and Local Government which, later that year, became the Department of the Environment under Peter Walker. This gave him scope for his interest in conservation and the environment.

He moved to live in that enclave of the Conservative Establishment, Smith Square, taking over the imposing No 6. At the same time, a caravan appeared in the House of Lords car park. In it, on Friday afternoons, the Sandfords would pack a food hamper and set off to see some distant historic site under threat. In the 1970s such interest in the environment was considered eccentric.

The National Parks of England and Wales owe Sandford a special debt. As a junior environment minister he led a review of park policies. His committee, which reported in 1974, was asked to look at how the parks, whose origins lay in legislation of 1949, were coping with the rapid changes in recreation, farming and forestry. The central dilemma was how to reconcile the two statutory purposes of the parks: conservation of the landscape and wildlife, and promoting access and recreation.

Sandford’s committee had no doubt that “where the conflict between the two purposes . . . becomes acute, the first one must prevail in order that the beauty and ecological qualities of the national parks may be maintained”.

This simple but powerful idea, that conservation has priority over recreation, has come to be known as “the Sandford principle”. The Government of the day endorsed it, though it was not put into legislation until the Environment Act of 1995.

A move to the Department of Education and Science in 1973 proved unhappy. Margaret Thatcher was Secretary of State, and big changes were afoot. Sandford was too much the gentleman, and he lacked the hard-hitting intellectual fire or the experience to dent the attacks of that formidable group in the Lords, the independent peers, many of whom had professional backgrounds in education. He came, too, to feel marginalised by his Secretary of State.

Out of office, he was still involved in many activities. He produced reports on planning that had the merit of recognising some of the real problems. He argued for jobs to be created in new communities, to stop the twicedaily commuter race across narrowing green belts.

Sandford’s interests were unusually diverse. As well as his involvement with the national parks and with environmental questions, he was from 1968 to 1970 a member of the Advisory Committee on Penal Reform; from 1981 to 1988 president of the Standing Conference of London and South East Planning Authorities; from 1982 to 1989 a Church Commissioner; from 1980 to 1986 president of the Association of District Councils; and from 1979 to 1990 vice-president of the Youth Hostel Association.

Sandford is fondly remembered as a principled, thoughtful and caring man, whose many small kindnesses meant a great deal to those around him, especially young campaigners. His passion for education and heritage inspired countless people.He is survived by his wife, Catharine, and their two sons and two daughters. The title is inherited by his elder son, the Hon James Edmondson.

Commander the Rev Lord Sandford, DSC, seaman, clergyman, politician and conservationist, was born on December 22, 1920. He died on January 13, 2009, aged 88
Click to expand...

Antipodean Andy · Jan 26, 2009

What a full life he led. RIP.

Although Britain was awarded a large sum in damages by the International Court of The Hague, it has never been paid.
Click to expand...

Ridiculous.

Log in or Sign up

Lord Sandford RIP

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Lord Sandford RIP

Thread Tools

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches