Taken from the SRGS magazine of Ocober 1898.
Rev George Sandford died aged 82 in 1898.
(For the following brief memoir, we are indebted to the "Sheffield Telegraph.")
Rev. G. Sandford was a Scholar of Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he entered in the year 1837. He took his B.A. in 1840, and his M.A. three years later. His first curacy was at Acton, in Cheshire, where he worked from 1840 to 1843. He then came to Sheffield as Vice-Principal of the Collegiate School, and in 1846 was appointed Vicar of St. Jude's, Eldon Street, and for twenty-eight yours out of the thirty-four he held that position he acted as Chaplain at the Sheffield Cemetery. The best years of his life were spent in i1 work of a poor parish. When he became Vicar of St. Jude's there wars no church, but he was not long in starting on the uphill task of collecting the money necessary for one. A few Sheffield men contributed liberally, but he did not get that general support which he had a right to look for. Hence he was driven to secure help wherever possible, and after an anxious time he secured money enough to justify him in making a commencement with the building scheme. Once the church was up, additions in the way of beautifying its interior were made from time to time, and in clue course the Vicar had a well-appointed church, and in the management of the various parochial agencies he had the sympathetic co-operation of an admiring band of workers. Having provided himself with a church, Mr. Sandford turned his attention to the provision of an elementary school. A site was secured at a cost of £500, and a school-house was built at a cost of upwards of £2,000. Again difficulty and expense were met with in consequence of having to sink deeply into the soil for a good foundation, but in all his efforts the Vicar had tine loyal support of his congregation, and a very successful bazaar relieved him of financial anxiety in regard to the school. He also started a fund for the erection of a vicarage. This work, too, was carried out successfully, and Mr. Sandford had the satisfaction of spending many happy years within the vicarage. The claims of a crowded town parish made heavy calls upon his time and strength. But he gave cheerfully of both, and gained his reward in the ever-increasing measure of esteem felt for and displayed to him by his parishioners.
In the year 1880 Mr. Sandford was appointed Vicar of Ecclesall, the vacancy in that living having been caused by the death of the Rev. Edward Newman, who had filled it for nearly a quarter-of-a-century. The patron of the living was the Archdeacon of Sheffield, and Dr. Blakeney, who then held that position, asked Mr. Sandford's acceptance of it. Promotion had never been more worthily earned. Thirty-four years' work in a town parish is a large and heavy drain on the strength of any man, and the deceased was justified, in the eyes of all men, in making way for a younger clergyman at St. Jude's, by taking upon himself the lighter task of looking after a rural parish like that of Ecclesall.
He gained the high regard of his parishioners by his kindness and courtesy, and his ever-ready sympathy for everyone in sorrow and affliction irrespective of creed or ritual. From 1880 up to his death, the deceased continued to be Vicar of Ecclesall, spending the years in happy communion with the scattered population of the parish. A time came, of course, when he began to feel the burden of his years, but that was long after he had passed his three-score years and ten. He performed the duties of his office in a way which won the admiration of his brother clergy, and the people to whom he ministered. The kindness of his nature won him many friends, and when on rare occasions he found himself in opposition to any of his parishioners, he fought for that which lire believed to be right with a firmness which evoked admiration, and a gentleness and fairness in harmony with the spirit of that God of love and peace of which he was such an ardent exponent.