Francis Williams Anders was born in 1769. After some years of pupilage to John Stanley, attorney-general of the Leeward Islands, and M.P. for Hastings, 1784–1801, he began practice as a certificated conveyancer. Sanders was author of a professional treatise of deservedly high repute entitled ‘An Essay on Uses and Trusts, and on the Nature and Operation of Conveyances at Common Law, and of those which derive their effect from the Statute of Uses,’ London, 1791, 1799.