Career
He unsuccessfully contested Wakefield at the 1868 general election, when he was beaten by the Liberal Party candidate Somerset Beaumont. He did not stand in 1874, when the Conservative candidate Edward Green defeated Beaumont. He was defeated at the 1880 general election by the Liberal candidate Robert Bownas Mackie, another local corn merchant, who Sanderson had defeated in 1874.
He did not stand again.
