3 August 1880 Myrtle Bank

William Sanders, a Scotsman from Kinross, died in Adelaide on 3 August 1880, two days short of his seventy-ninth birthday. Sanders, his wife, brother and sister arrived in South Australia on the Catherine Jamieson in December 1838 and after living in a tent for a while moved into a house in Hindley Street. There he established a business with a fellow Scot, trading as Sanders and Whyte, linen merchants. He was elected to the first City Council in 1840.

In 1842 he purchase some land near the foothills from Captain Berkeley and built a house which he named Myrtle Bank after the property of a friend in Edinburgh. In 1843 he bought the adjoining property of Ridge Park and by 1844 had planted 60 acres of wheat, four acres of barley four of maize as well as an acre of garden and also kept eight cattle. Sometime later he sold the Ridge Park portion of his property to Captain William Elder. In 1854 Sanders made his second trip back to Scotland and during his absence Thomas Elder and later Robert Barr Smith lived at Myrtle Bank; soon after the property was sold to William Ferguson who lived there for many years.

On his return Sanders took up pastoral land including the Canowie and Warcowie runs. During World War I Myrtle Bank became a Repatriation Hospital and although much of the property has been subdivided the house and its garden remain as part of the War Veterans’ Home.

Eric Gunton, Gracious Homes of Colonial Adelaide, 1983, pp 85-6.