[3] He was educated in Brisbane and became an engineer, working around North Queensland and the Northern Territory.
He was consulting engineer for the British North Borneo Company, and worked to abolish the slave trade.
In 1885 he settled in Victoria, where he worked as a consulting engineer and patents and trademarks attorney.
He won a by-election for the Victorian Legislative Council province of North Eastern in 1892, and was briefly a minister without portfolio in June 1902 before his appointment as Vice-President of the Board of Land and Works.
[4] Sachse was a founding member of the Victorian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, and its president from 1913;[3] the society awarded its Sachse Gold Medal to Charles Fenner in 1919.