John Satterfield Sandars (1853-1934) was educated at Repton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1877. In 1886 he was appointed Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, later 1st Viscount Llandaff. In the general election of 1892 Sandars unsuccessfully contested Mid.-Derbyshire, the only occasion on which he fought a parliamentary election. From 1892 to 1905 he was Private Secretary to A.J. Balfour, a position from which he was able to play a crucial role within the leadership of the Conservative Party. During Balfour's prime ministership Sanders very largely assumed the duties and responsibilities that were subsequently to be exercised by the Cabinet Secretariat. Sandars's importance as a link between Balfour and other Conservative leaders and with the Court continued after the Conservatives went into opposition in 1905. In 1915 he quarrelled with Balfour when the latter entered the coalition government, an estrangement that was to last until Balfour's death. Sandars was a Privy Councillor and the author of a book published anonymously under the title Studies of Yesterday Privy Councillor. For further details see the Dictionary of National Biography.