Henry Sandham (1832-1892)
Keeper, Science and Art Department, South Kensington Museum, London, S.W.
1893 Obituary [1]
HENRY SANDHAM was born on 13th March 1832 at Brompton, near Chatham, being the eldest son of General Henry Sandham of the Royal Engineers.
He was educated at Rugby and the Charterhouse, and by Dr. William Bridgman of Woolwich.
In 1849 he went to Russia for commercial life, but returned home in 1854, on war being declared.
In 1855 he was appointed assistant to Captain Francis Fowke, R.E., for the arrangement and working of the British machinery department at the Paris Exhibition of that year.
From 1856 to 1859 be had charge of machinery, partly of his own design, erected at Ipswich by Messrs. Pye Brothers for the steeping and preparation of flax, the growth of which had been introduced into Suffolk as a commercial enterprise.
In 1859 he joined the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, as assistant to Captain Fowke in forming there a collection of models of architecture and building construction, with specimens of materials and of their practical application in building.
In 1862 he was connected with the International Exhibition in London for the arrangement of the machinery in motion.
In 1867 he went again to Paris to assist in the arrangement and erection of the British machinery in the Exhibition.
In 1868 he was entrusted with the formation at South Kensington Museum of a permanent collection of models and drawings of ships, and of boilers, engines, and machinery employed in steam-ships.
In 1873 be was charged with the general arrangement of the whole of the British section at the Vienna Exhibition.
After thirty-three years' service with the Science and Art Department, his death took place on 13th August 1892, in the sixty-first year of his age.
He became an Associate of this Institution in 1883; and in 1885 contributed a paper on the history of paddle-wheel steam navigation (Proceedings, page 121).