Albert G. Sandeman
(1833-1923)
28 January 1861

Volume 2, page 171, sitting number 1974.

Born in Islington [London] on 21 October 1833, the eldest son of George Glas Sandeman of 15 Hyde Park Gardens [London], Albert George Sandeman commenced his business career at the age of sixteen, eventually becoming the third head of the Sandeman Company. ‘To connoisseurs of both ports and sherries the name of Sandeman is not only familiar but is held in peculiar respect and is an accepted criterion of quality of all consignments bearing the firm’s name’ [Leading Men of London, 1895].

In 1856 Albert Sandeman married Maria Carlotta Perpetua de Moraes Sarmento, daughter of Viscount Moncorvo, the Portuguese ambassador at the Court of St James. The couple had two sons and four daughters.

He appears on the 1861 census, age 27, living at 21 Cambridge Square, London [half way between Bayswater and Paddington], with his wife, Mary, a daughter, Amelia, age 6, two small sons, Walter and Ernest, and six servants. He gave his profession as ‘Merchant – Trading with Portugal, Spain and France, chiefly in Wine.’

A director of the Bank of England, his year of office as its Governor was 1895 to 1896.

According to Leading Men of London (1895), his residence was 32 Grosvenor Street [London]. A few years later, Men of the Times (1899) gave his address as Presdales, Ware [Hertfordshire], while according to Who Was Who, 1916-1928, his address was Greylands, Bexhill-on-Sea [Sussex].

Albert George Sandeman died on 6 January 1923 at Greylands, Bexhill-on-Sea. He left an estate valued at £85,732.

[From an album compiled by Charles Balfour, a British wine merchant importing sherry and port from Portugal. Born in Edinburgh on 22 August 1822, his father was James Balfour. In May 1852 he married Mary Ermelinda, daughter of Robert Woodhouse of Oporto in Portugal. The couple were married at the consulate then afterwards at the British chapel in Oporto. Charles Balfour died on 12 January 1876.]