Henry Frederick Conrad Sander

Who was Henry Frederick Conrad Sander?

Henry Frederick Conrad Sander was a German-born orchidologist and nurseryman who settled in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England and is noted for his monthly publication on orchids, Reichenbachia, named in honour of Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach of Hamburg, the great orchidologist.

In 1867 Sander entered the employ of James Carter & Co., a nursery at Forest Hill, meeting the Czech explorer and plant collector Benedict Roezl. Roezl had been shipping plants to England for some time, but needed a reliable agent there to manage sales, leaving him free to collect and explore. Their business association was to prove a profitable one.

Sander resigned from Carter & Co., and set up business as a seedsman in St Albans. Roezl shipped enormous consignments of orchids and tropical plants, filling a vast warehouse near the seed shop. Sander's marketing of the plants was so successful that Roezl retired in comfort to his native city of Prague.

Sander, on the other hand, got rid of the seed business and concentrated on orchids. His premises soon proved to be too small to house his enormous collections, and in 1881 he acquired 4 acres of ground in St Albans on which to build a new nursery and home.