The Sander Family

OBITUARY

The last surviving son of Mr. H. F. Sander died in Bedford Hospital on January 10th. in his eighty-third year. He was Mr. C. F. Fearnley Sander who was closely associated with his father in founding and maintaining the establishment of Messrs.' Sander and Sons at Bruges, Belgium, in 1894.

Mr. Fearnley Sander was a clever administrator and so closely associated with the nursery at Bruges that he was not very well known to Orchid growers in England.

He served his fum for forty years. and after the death of his father, in 1920. he was mainly responsible for the conduct of the Bruges establishment until his retirement in 1934. A great lover of the countryside, he went to live at Kynaston, Woburn Sands, Buckinghamshire, but right up to the time of his death he remained attached to Bruges Nursery in an advisory capacity. For his service to the Belgian horticultural industry, Mr. Fearnley Sander was made
a Chevalier of the Order of the Crown of Belgium. He had an engaging personality and was greatly loved by his employees. His remains were laid to rest in the family vault at St. Albans, following a very quiet funeral service attended by members of the family.

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Peter, his grandson, would like to add a few words:

At the outset of the first world war, in 1914, Belgium was soon occupied by the German army. As an English citizen, Fearnley had to leave with his family and went to live in Chiswick in London, working locally for intelligence as a translator.

Just as the Royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gothe to Windsor, Fearnley dropped his Germanic "Conrad Friederich" and used his mothers maiden name. This change was done by deed pole in 1917, the same year as the Royal family adopted their new name. The irony that the firm's founder had left Germany because of the ''threat of war that
Bismark posed" was not lost on members of the family.