Patrick Sands (c1567-1635)

Patrick Sands (c1567-1635) was Principal of Edinburgh University from 1620 to 1622.

Biography

After graduating from Edinburgh under Robert Rollock, he travelled abroad and studied Law and became tutor to Lord Newbattle (Mark Kerr, 1st Earl of Lothian, c1559-1609). On returning to Edinburgh, he became an Advocate. Using family connections within the town council he managed to secure the position of Principal to the University in 1620. He was also appointed to supply in Greyfriars Church in the afternoons. As his time was split between two offices he was unable to satisfactorily focus on either one, and he had to relinquish the post in 1622.

In 1606 he had married Marion, sister of David Aikinhead, Lord Provost of Edinburgh. He contributed two Latin poems to Sir William Mure's The Muses' Welcome (Edinburgh) and a Latin epigram in praise of Patrick Anderson's Angelic Pills. He died in 1635.

Sources

• Sir Alexander Grant, The Story of the University of Edinburgh during its First Three Hundred Years, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1884)