Albert William Sandercock was the fourth son of Richard and Elizabeth, born in the hamlet of St. Thomas Street, Launceston, Cornwall, on 29 July, 1848. He is mentioned as the son aged two years in Richard’s household, in the 1851 Census in Launceston. it is not known whether he had started school in that town when he and his family left Cornwall in July of 1853. He was five years old on the sixth day out from the South Downs of England, on the voyage out to South Australia. Once at ‘Berry Hill’, he would have gone to school somewhere near his new home - perhaps at the Misses Tuck’s school.

Sometime before 1873, or perhaps in that year, Albert William went up to the newly opened up wheat areas around Jamestown, though he did not buy land there until five years later. Possibly while visiting, or working near his older brothers Richard and Samuel at Riverton, he courted a Cornish girl named Jane Mitchell. Her father Richard Mitchell’s farm was called ‘Treven’ (a Cornish name) and was not far from Richard Sandercock’s farm, north west of Riverton. On 3 April, 1873, Albert William of ‘Mannanarie’ married Jane Mitchell at her father’s home. The bridegroom was 24 and the bride 22 years of age. Witnesses were Edward Camp, farmer of Hoyleton, and Margaret Richardson of Saddleworth, and the officiating minister was the Rev. Thomas Piper.

Jane Mitchell was born in the parish of Alturnun, west of Launceston in Cornwall, on 15 June, 1851, and named after her mother. The Mitchells, including Jane’s brother Richard Bartlett, came to Riverton in 1859. The family had emigrated to South Australia on the ship the ‘Lady McDonnell’, which arrived in April, 1855. Their farm ‘Treven’ was sold out of the Mitchell name only a few years ago.

The Sandercocks went to Mannanarie to live after their marriage. Albert William may have leased his farm for a few years. In April, 1874, their first child Robert John was born at Mannanarie. Several years later Albert William bought 274 acres of land on Section 86, Hundred of Mannanarie, County of Dalhousie, for 274 pounds; the farm was situated a little north-east of Mannanarie township. Some time later he must have bought further land on the adjoining Section 83, according to the Assessment Book for 1895 at the District Council of Yongala, making a total of 481 acres. The occupier was then a Henry Hall, but Albert William, then living at Payneham. near Adelaide, still owned the land. (it was sold to Mr Hall in 1908.)

The Sandercock family attended the Primitive Methodist Church at Mannanarie. In fact Albert William was one of the first trustees of the church, and had joined two farmers Daniel and Samuel Robinson, the storekeeper John Stephens, blacksmith William Tucker, butcher Henry Turpin and the Primitive Methodist minister Arthur W. Wellington to help buy the land on which the church stands. The site was purchased on 8 November, 1882, and according to the press report, was opened at a cost of 270 pounds, being a stone chapel of Gothic style. (it was closed for services in 1966.)

It is thought that Albert William and Jane returned to the Adelaide area because of ill health. it must have been before the birth of their second son Percival Allen, who was born at Payneham in December of 1885. Albert William purchased an allotment in John Street, Payneham (near the site of the present Payneham Oval) and gradually put it over to the growing of fruit trees. Standing on the block of land (about 3 ¾ acres) were four houses and a disused Church of England church, which became the nucleus of the Sandercocks’ Payneham house. The Third Creek a tributary of the River Torrens (its source springing in the hills near Gumeracha) ran through the John Street block. When the creek flooded, (as it did often, a grandson remembers,) the silt which remained proved to be a godsend to the productivity of the soil.

There were five children born to Jane Sandercock. Besides Robert (‘bob’) and Percy, there were two other sons Hurtle Albert and Stanley James, and one daughter Elsie May. Their parents were members of the Argent Street Methodist Church at Payneham, now contained in the Payneham cemetery. Jane was a great worker for her church and practised charity for those in need of her help. She visited those who were sick, taking a little covered basket of things along with her. She was teasingly referred to by her eldest grandson Albert Roy Sandercock as “plain jane” on account of the severe style in which Jane pulled back her hair, and always wore thus. She was supposed to have been a good cook and a very kind grandmother to her three grandchildren (Bob Sandercock’s children). Jane died of a long and unknown illness in the Royal Adelaide Hospital on 28 September, 1911, at the age of 60 years.

Albert William is remembered with great affection by his grandson Roy Sandercock. ‘He was a very kind man without a cross word for anyone’ Roy says. Until the last months of his life, Roy and his grandfather shared a bedroom. He was a short and lean man, and loved the visits of his elder brother Samuel, then living in retirement at Norwood. The visits were an excuse to talk and there was plenty of that, Roy remembers. The last 8 months of Albert William’s life were spent in great pain. He had cancer of the stomach, but his grandson cannot remember him ever complaining. In fact his Doctor could not understand how his great pain suffered at this time kept Albert William so reticent about it. He became a strong believer in faith healing, and though he had not met any faith healers, he read many books on the subject. He died on 28 June, 1915, at the age of 66 years.

Jane and Albert William were buried at the Payneham cemetery - Marian Road, the side street on which the old Argent Street Church stands, was one street south of the Sandercock home in John Street.