Thomas Sanderson, 1st Baron Sanderson

Sir Thomas Henry Sanderson, 1st Baron Sanderson of Armthorpe was born on the 11th January 1841 in Gunton Park, about 6 miles North of Aylsham, in Norfolk.

Second son to Richard Sanderson, Member of Parliament for Colchester from 1832 to 1847, and the Hon. Charlotte Matilda Sanderson (nee Manners-Sutton), elder daughter of Charles Manners-Sutton, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1817 to 1835.

Educated at Eton College until he was forced to leave the school in 1857 due to the poor state of his families finances, caused by the death of his father in October of that year, and his father's business in East India failing.

Sanderson entered the Foreign Office as a junior clerk in 1859 and was not to leave the Foreign Office until his retirement in 1906.

Early in Sanderson's career he crossed paths with Edward Henry Stanley, the later 15th Earl of Derby. Sanderson became Stanley's private secretary in July 1866. Sanderson left an impression on Stanley, who described him as 'the best of the juniors'^[1] on exit from office, after Benjamin Disraeli's first government fell in the 1868 December General Election.

December 1863 Sanderson accompanied Lord Wodehouse to Berlin and Copenhagen on his special mission during the Schleswig-Holstein crisis. 1871 Sanderson went to Geneva during the arbitration between the United Kingdom and the USA on the Alabama claims.

Sanderson's nickname was 'Lamps' due to his strong spectacles.

Positions held

• Private Secretary to Lord Derby July 1866 to 1868.
• Private Secretary to Lord Derby 1874 to 1878.
• Secretary to Earl Granville 1880.
• Senior Clerk 1885.
• Assistant Under-secretary 1889.
• Permanent Under-secretary 1894.

References