Portrait of W. Sanders from Canowie from the S.A. Northern Pioneers' composite, 1850-1859 (shown in position on B 6912/4).

William Sanders was born in Kinross, Scotland 5 August 1801. He arrived in South Australia on 7 December 1838 with his wife Harriet and three children - James Carstairs, Robert and Harriet - on the Catherine Jamieson. He established himself as an agent for absentee land owners and took up his first pastoral land with a lease on the River Murray. However he did not hold this long before passing it on to Philip Levi.

In 1869 he acquired an interest in Canowie station, north of Burra, near Hallet. With his partners R B James, Frederick Hayward and J B Graham he later took out the lease on Curnamona. Sanders, James and Company operated for many years, surviving droughts and the resumption of lands by the South Australian government. In 1894 the Canowie Pastoral Company was formed and continued until 1910 when it began selling off the land with the last being sold in 1925.

He also took up a pastoral run at Warcowie station in partnership with H F Shipster. Warcowie was subsequently transferred to Sanders' sons James and Robert.

Sanders died suddenly on the train on 3 August 1880, aged 79 while travelling home to Glenelg. He is buried in the Brighton cemetery. William Sanders was a benefactor of the Unitarian Church in Wakefield Street, lending some of the funds needed for its building.

Cockburn, R Pastoral pioneers of South Australia 2 v. Adelaide : Publishers Limited, 1925-1927 ("Reprinted from the Adelaide Stock and Station Journal.") vol. 2 pp. 158-59

Death of Mr. W. Sanders Adelaide observer, 7 August 1880, p. 228, col. d

Sanders, W. B. William Sanders and some "Canowie" history / compiled by W.B. Sanders - a grandson Adelaide: Pioneers' Association of S.A., 1944

Manning Index of South Australian History: Canowie