William Thompson Sabben (14 Jan 1813 – 3 May 1890) was Adelaide's first Town Clerk and was Mayor from December 1858 to January 1859,[1] his term being cut short when he was indicted on charges of forgery and uttering, found guilty, and sentenced to six years with hard labour.
Sabben was a resident of Portsmouth, England, and emigrated to Victoria, thence to South Australia, where on 24 March 1849 he was admitted as a barrister of the Supreme Court.
[2] He was in July 1852 appointed the City of Adelaide's first Town Clerk, a position which he offered to fill, in the first instance, gratis.
[9] Sabben was convicted in March 1859 of having forged a document[10] in the name of one Thomas Braddon, a landholder of Angaston and Mount Remarkable, used as collateral to obtain a bank loan during a time of recession.
He then moved to Queen's Own Town (now Finniss, South Australia), where his daughter Marian Cowling lived, and died at their home, the schoolhouse.