Ted Sandyman

The miller's son

Ted was the son of Sandyman, the miller of Hobbiton, whose mill stood on the Water below the Hill. He first appears in the spring of T.A. 3018 at the Green Dragon in Bywater, arguing with Sam Gamgee over the queer news coming into the Shire. Sam's cousin Hal had seen a tree-man walking on the North Moors, and Sam had heard that Elves were passing west to the Havens; Ted, who dealt in flour and not in wonders, laughed him down, suggested Hal had seen an elm, and declared that Sam should stick to gardening. Sam retreated to the thought that Bilbo had seen an Elf, and that Frodo had heard of an Elf-ship. The exchange is the clearest picture the story gives of ordinary Shire opinion on the eve of the War.

The new mill

Ted was on the other side when the Troubles came. Under Lotho's rule the old Hobbiton mill was pulled down and a bigger one built, full of wheels and outlandish contrivances, and Sandyman's son went to work for the Men who ran it, cleaning the machinery. The new mill produced little flour but a great deal of filth, which poured into the Water and down the Brandywine, and Ted evidently found the arrangement congenial. When the four travellers rode into the wreck of Hobbiton on 3 November 3019, Ted was the one hobbit who came out to jeer, leaning on the mill bridge with a grimy face and a horn he had blown to raise the ruffians. Sam told him that the Men were finished and that the mill would be pulled down, and mentioned Frodo's intention to see the old one rebuilt; Ted's reply was that Sam and his friends would learn better, and he blew his horn again to no effect.

Afterwards

Nothing more is told of Ted Sandyman. The new mill was demolished in the restoration, the Water ran clean, and his father's trade presumably resumed under other hands. He remains the one hobbit in the tale who liked the Shire better under Sharkey than before.

Unknown; the mill he served was pulled down after the Scouring.