He was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, the son of Thomas Sowden, a miner from Cornwall, and his wife Mary Ann, née Hocking. They spent some years in Kapunda, but had returned to Castlemaine by 1867, where William completed his schooling and started in the newspaper trade. They moved to Moonta in 1874, where William started work with the Yorke's Peninsula Advertiser, then in 1879 he joined the Port Adelaide News and in 1881 started working for the South Australian Register, and was selected to accompany a group of parliamentarians, Professor Ralph Tate and others, to the Northern Territory on the Menmuir as a representative of the Register. On his return he was given a position on the reporting staff and became chief leader writer in 1892. From 1897 to 1899 he was acting editor, and subsequently became editor, remaining in that position until his retirement in September, 1922. He became part-proprietor of the Register in 1899. He wrote, as "A. Pencil", a regular satirical column as city correspondent for the Kapunda Herald, much as C. R. Wilton, as "Autolycus", wrote for the Mount Barker Courier. He also wrote, as "A. Scribbler", a regular column "Echoes from the Smoking Room" for the Register. He retired around 1925 to "Castlemaine", the house designed by architect Henry Ernest Fuller in Victor Harbor, where he died.
founder and first president of the SA branch of the Wattle Day League
the first president of the South Australian Soldiers' Fund, the Returned Soldiers' Association and the Cheer-Up Society. He was for 19 years president of Violet Memory Day, an initiative of the "Cheer-Ups"
Sir William, who made several extensive tours abroad, was present in Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King George VI. He led a press delegation to England, accompanied by Sir James Fairfax. In 1918 he visited the battlefields of Europe as guest of the Imperial Government. His forthright manner and outgoing personality won for him many admirers, but also many enemies, among them Sir Samuel Way.
