William Sanders (1835 - 1919)

Born 19 Jul 1835 in New South Wales, Australia [uncertain]

Ancestors

Husband of Hannah Eliza (Parsonage) Sanders — married 1864 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Descendants

Died 1919 at about age 83 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

William Sanders born on 19 Jul 1835. He was the son of Thomas Sanders and Ann Hannah (Bushell) Sanders. He was christened on 12 Oct 1841 in Wilberforce, New South Wales. He grew up in New South Wales.

William married Hannah Parsonage in 1864 in Sydney. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ New South Wales BDM marriage SYDNEY 295/1864 SANDERS WILLIAM = PARSONAGE HANNA THE LATE WILLIAM SANDERS AN APPRECIATION. (By Henrv Fletcher.) With the passing of my for a quarter-of- a-century neighbour, William Sanders, the district loses a notable personality. Locally bred, he was brought up in a hard school, and it was with no fond remembrances that he recalled his early days. Earnings were miserable then, corresponding to the meagre profits of producers and employers— a Nelson man at piece work with his own bullocks and waggon drawing shingles and timber to Windsor made seven shillings a week! Young Sanders worked for a time with the Gillespies at Pitt Town, and they were famous grafters; starting with a load of hay they would travel all night, arriving in Sydney in the morning. The hay sold, and horses rested, there followed the return journey, an all-night travel on the roads, and an arrival at the Pitt Town farm in time for dinner. After that meal— there had been no proper sleep for two nights— the old man would say:— "Now boys, we'll go out and do a bit o' work." It was while in this employ that young Sanders, always thrifty, devoted three months savings to the purchase of a new hat; he was mighty proud of it, wore it once, met a mate at Magrath's Hill, who also admired and borrowed it to go to the races. Sanders never saw the hat or the mate again. , The season allowing, people grew their own grain, wheat or maize, taking it to the mill to be gristed. They were their own butchers when they had a beast to kill. The indolent toiled "from Jackass to Jack ass," while grafters rose and fed the horses at three, and they were harnessed up at four. Suddenly these hard times, that the present generation cannot realise, vanished as at the waving of a magic wand. Gold was discovered! Any kind of labor was worth a pound a day. At this time William Sanders was learning boot-making in Windsor, and his employer, with crowds of others, rushed off over the mountains. Later, Sanders went cedar cutting on the Tweed River, making good money; but after a short experience returned to the Hawkesbury and his father's grant at Nelson, and here he ever afterwards lived, marrying and bring ing up a large and highly respected family. At first, helped by his sisters, he started dairying, but the Great Drought that fol- lowed was fatal to the stock; for months and months there was not a bite of feed in the whole district, or the slightest sign of it. The country was a dusty waste, and the few stock that survived were kept alive by feeding off the leaves of chopped down trees. Sanders spent weeks in the bog holes of Cattai Creek dragging out his animals. After that dreadful time he followed market gardening, and orcharding, beng greatly helped to success by his industrious wife and children. So much for the material Sanders — the hardworking pioneer, the battler against the many difficulties of a bush settler in the old days. But there was another side to his character, to himself far more important, and by others little understood. With intense religious convictions, to him it appeared sure that a divine message had been given to man in the scriptures, and it was all important that it should be understood and obeyed. He read and re-read the Bible till he knew large portions by heart. But then arose a difficulty. The requirements for salvation stated in the Gospels seemed to be in direct opposition to those affirmed by St. Paul, and both being inspired, how were they to be reconciled? For half a century Sanders strove and wrestled with the problem, and interrogated all those likely or even unlikely to give him help; the Archbishop of Sydney, most of our local clergy, or even the casual visitor knowing nothing of the subject. For he had a wonderful persistence and appeared to have assurance that if he questioned long enough illumination would come. He told me once:— "When I was a boy, I used to think my father a very obstinate and foolish man ; for if there was a tree in the bush that no one else would touch because it was windey or fuzzy, and so very hard to split, that was just the one he would pick, and fight and battle over it, for getting me, forgetting meal time, forgetting everything till he had burst it up. With so many easy trees handy, and starving with my boy's appetite, I could not understand; but as I grow older, I find myself getting more like my father every day." A three rail fence put up by the father, probably sixty years ago, is still standing in fair order. This strenuousness of the father in bursting refractory timber, was expressed in the son in the effort to solve the enigma of theology. He brought keen natural logic to his aid, and with this tripped up every adversary who admitted that the scriptures held the Divine message; for he showed that their varied solutions of his problem had no sure foundation. To this dialectic prompting he joined a wonderful sincerity; his faith was not a garment more or less worn, it was actual part of himself. Driving to Windsor, Sanders got talking with another neighbour, also driving, who said, "I'll swap horses with you, it you like Sanders. "No," said Sanders, "I will give you a pound with my beast, for he is not as good as yours." The Rumery Bros., of Box Hill, used to buy his citrus crop on the trees; one season after they had paid, a storm badly damaged it and Sanders went to them with notes in his hand: — "It's a fair thing that I share this loss with you",' he said. But the Rumerys would on no account accept their money back, being in matters of business as scrupulous as Sanders himself. The old grants in the district were resurveyed, and in most instances shown to be larger than the deeds allowed. While others rejoiced to think that they had got the better of the Government, Sanders gave up his surplus for the making of a new road not wanted by himself, for, he said, "If my father wrongfully enclosed more land than he should, it is only right that I, his son, should do my best to repair his mistake." There was another aspect of his character rare and precious. He looked on the world and life with his own eyes, seeing and judging for himself; and these original estimates were usually wonderfully correct. If you could divert his conversation from the absorbing theory, no one could be more interesting. From little traits in a man's character he logically calculated how he would develop. He forecasted to me with sure accuracy what later on happened to several prominent Hawkesbury people, and this at a time when to others there was no sign of it. Regrettable that this great and veracious intelligence was restricted to so narrow a groove; that from him was hidden the results of what others, much of. his own mental class, have discovered — his reading was confined to the Bible and a few books connected with it — for so armed, in his constant study of the life about him, he might have greatly added to our knowledge. Yet probably in one of his descendants the type of mind will reappear under more favouring circumstances; and the Hawkesbury be proud of Sanders the scientist, as it now is of Tebbutt the astronomer — a connection of the same family. But if ever eyes should be able to close in peace after over four score years of strenuous life, they should be those of William Sanders. The light that was given him he followed un- flinchingly regardless of difficulties or con- sequences. What more could he do? How few of us have the courage or the hardihood to do as much? Good-bye, old friend, till we meet again. C

• Baptism: "Australia Births and Baptisms, 1792-1981", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTC6-PXT : 28 January 2020), William Sanders, 1841.

• Windsor and Richmond Gazette (NSW : 1888 - 1954) Fri 25 Jul 1919

• Death registration: NSW 20914/1919 - William Sanders, parents Thomas and Ann H, Windsor district