Lanarth House is to the west of St Keverne. This profile of Lanarth House and its Methodist Chapel has been compiled by Terry Moyle.
William Sandys joined the Bengal Army of the East India Company in 1779 and saw action during the First Maratha War (1778–1782) and the Third Mysore War (1790–1792). He was appointed major in the 5th Bengal Native Infantry in 1803, followed shortly in 1804 by promotion to lieutenant-colonel in the 15th Bengal Native Infantry.
The massive granite vault at the west end of St Keverne church displaying the name SANDYS and the memorial tablet within the church to Lieut. Colonel William Sandys late of the honourable East India Company’s service who died in 1829 do not immediately suggest any connection with Methodism, though curiously enough Sandys’ life impinged upon not only local but World Methodism.
The family had been at Lanarth since 1617. William was born in 1759, the son of William Sandys, a Helston attorney, and Mary Sandys and was baptised at Helston Church on 17th January 1760. After a distinguished army career in India he retired to St Keverne in 1805. He immediately set about rebuilding the old house at Lanarth, creating what Samuel Drew described as an elegant house, raised with its gardens and grounds to their present state of perfection at a vast expense.
William Sandys was not idle in his retirement and was evidently a benevolent landlord as well as a magistrate of great integrity. What was markedly unusual about him was the way in which he conducted his religious affairs. He may well have occupied the family pew at St Keverne church on Sunday mornings but in addition he set apart a wing of the house at Lanarth as a chapel, invited the Methodist preachers to take services and sometimes conducted them himself. About the same time he opened a Sunday School at Lanarth and again was prepared to use Methodists to staff it. A Mary Taylor was one of the teachers and young Tom Champion from Coverack made regular journeys when school was over to escort her back to Coverack. They were later married at St Keverne church on 17 November 1818.
Shortly before Christmas 1806, Dr. Thomas Coke, one of the leaders of Methodism after the death of Wesley and the founder of Methodist Missions overseas, came to Cornwall and met Colonel Sandys. It was not the first meeting between the two men (how they first met is not known) for Sandys had been present at the Methodist Conference in Sheffield in 1805. A Conference committee was then formed to discuss with him the prospects for a Methodist Mission to India. Dr. Coke’s visit to Helston in 1806 was made in pursuance of these plans.
Colonel Sandys interest in Methodist Missions extended beyond discussions, letters and his annual subscription. In 1820 he presided at a series of missionary meetings in the main Cornish towns and in the following year took the chair at the Society’s annual meeting at City Road, London, on which occasion he was introduced by Jabez Bunting as a “tried friend of our own and of other Missionary Societies”.
Another regular visitor to Lanarth between 1809 and 1829 was the Methodist philosopher, Samuel Drew.
The Colonel’s churchmanship and his relation to Methodism is not easy to assess. He was an evangelical Anglican whose missionary enthusiasm and ecumenical outlook probably arose out of his residence in India and his contact with Baptist missionaries there. Clearly, he was a man of independent views who, while maintaining his position as an Anglican squire at St Keverne, was able at the same time to register Lanarth for technically “dissenting” worship. From 1812 he served on the Wesleyan Committee of Privileges, the standing committee of the Methodist Conference, a surprising position for a non-Methodist to hold.
Although the mission to India did not materialise in 1806, seven years later a missionary foothold was gained in Ceylon. William Sandys died at Plymouth in 1829 and his obituary in the Cornish press described him as a man of integrity, unaffected piety and excessive benevolence, a man endeared to all who knew him.
“Freed from the shackles of bigotry, he liberally aided by his influence and his wealth Christians of all denominations”.
He was buried at St. Keverne on 27th August 1829 aged 70, Lieut. Colonel East India Service, of Lanarth.