Sandeman, Mrs Belinda and Miss Linda, 2 Landscore Villas, Landscore Road, Teignmouth
Belinda Goddard Sandeman, née Lynch, (1840 – 1921)[1] was born in April 1840 in Hackney, the daughter of Samuel Smith Lynch and Catherine Rebecca Cox, and baptised there in June 1840. Samuel Smith Lynch was a lieutenant in the 77th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot and had married Catherine in 1824 in Demerara, British Guiana. Belinda was the youngest but one of a large family of nine, whose birthplaces show that her parents had moved frequently around the UK and to Jersey before her birth.
The family were living at Grove Road, Hackney in 1841 and in Sudbury, Suffolk in 1851. Following that Samuel Lynch’s regiment saw action in the Crimea and was then sent to India where it was based between 1858 and 1870. While the family were out in India Belinda married Hugh David Sandeman. a widower with three children. on 24 July 1866 in Calcutta, where Hugh was working in the Bengal Civil Service. Belinda’s step-children were Hugh, b.1858, Rosey, b.1860 and Jessie, b.1862. Belinda and Hugh also had one daughter of their own, Linda Lynch Sandeman, (1867 – 1941) born in Calcutta on 21 May 1867 and baptized there on 19 June.
After Hugh Sandeman retired the family returned to England, and are listed on the 1881 census at 6 Lancaster Road Croydon; in 1891 at 442 Cottage Brentwood Lane Caterham; and in 1901 at 4 Elliott Terrace Plymouth. Hugh was a Freemason. He died at Elliot Terrace on 24 December 1909.
Belinda Sandeman moved to Teignmouth at some point after her husband’s death. Though she is not listed there on the 1911 census, ‘Mrs Sandeman’ is shown at 2 Landscore Villas in Kelly’s Directory for 1914.[2] Newspaper references show Linda assisting from 1913 onwards at sales of work in aid of the Church Missionary Society[3] and as a teacher at St James’s Sunday School.[4]
However, even before these dates the Sandemans seem to have become involved in the movement for women’s suffrage. Mrs Sandeman represented the Teignmouth branch of the NUWSS at a meeting of local branches held in Exeter in 1912 to discuss the prospects of the suffrage cause with the Countess of Selborne, president of the Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association.[5] She is referred to as President of the Teignmouth branch in the South West Federation Report for 1914.[6] Miss Sandeman helped to carry the Teignmouth banner during the procession through Exeter of the 1913 suffrage pilgrimage from Land’s End to London.[7]
During the war Miss Sandeman supported the work of the Teignmouth Urban District Council War Refugees Committee, and is mentioned at a Christmas entertainment for 150 Belgian children and families in 1916.[8] She became Treasurer to the West Teignmouth War Savings’ Association in 1916[9] and worked as part of the Teignmouth Women’s War Work Depot.[10]
Belinda Sandeman died at Landscore Villas on 24 February 1921. She left £2756 1s. 2d, with probate granted to her daughter Linda Lynch Sandeman. Linda herself died at Budleigh Salterton in 1941.
Entry created by Marilyn Smee, October 2018
[1] Family and census information from www.ancestry.co.uk
[2] Kelly’s Directory of Devon and Cornwall, London, Kelly’s Directories, 1914, 740.
[3] DEG, 14 Mar & 12 Dec 1913; 10 Dec 1915; 14 Dec 1916.
[4] WT, 7 May 1914.
[5] DEG, 1 Nov 1912.
[6] Women’s Library, 2NWS, Annual Report of the South West Federation in 1914.
[7] WT, 7 Jul 1913.
[8] DEG, 3 Jan 1916.
[9] WT, 19 Aug 1916.
[10] WT, 31 Aug 1917; 29 Jun 1918.