William David Ponder
William David Ponder was an Australian politician who represented the South Australian [House of Assembly] multi-member seats of Adelaide from 1905 to 1915 and North Adelaide from 1915 to 1921. He represented the Australian [Labor Party (South Australian Branch)|United Labor Party] until the 1917 Labor split, when he joined the National Party.
Ponder was born in London, but his family moved to Adelaide in the same year he was born; his sister was prominent journalist and author Winifred Ponder. His family initially lived in Adelaide and Gawler, but moved to Kapunda in 1860, where he was educated and undertook a printing apprenticeship for the Kapunda Herald. He worked as a compositor for the Government Printing Office and the South Australian Register. He subsequently moved to The Advertiser, where he worked as city collector and wrote a regular cricket column. He was subsequently appointed by Sir Langdon Bonython as a sub-editor for The Express and Telegraph. Later, he was an advertising agent from 1897 to 1918, a director of the Co-Operative Building Society for thirty years, and governor of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. He was also a significant Freemason, occupying a number of positions in that movement. He was an active member of the South Australian Literary Societies' Union; his claim to have first mooted that body's Union Parliament, was refuted by George Hussey.
Ponder was first elected to office in 1898 with his election as a City of Adelaide councillor for Young Ward, having been defeated in an attempt for that seat the previous year and in a bid for the Legislative Council in 1901. He was a councillor for six years, but ran for alderman and lost in 1904. Ponder was elected to the House of Assembly as a Labor member at the 1905 state election, and in 1915 was reported to have only ever missed one sitting. He was a state MP for sixteen years, being re-elected numerous times. He was expelled from the Labor Party in the 1917 Labor split over his support for conscription, joined the splinter National Party, and was re-elected in 1918 under that banner. However, following the collapse of the National Party's coalition with the conservative Liberal Union, he was defeated in 1921 for the short-lived Progressive Country Party alliance.
He died at "Wilcot", his home in Gilberton, in 1933. He had been in good health until a short time before his death, but suffered two heart attacks in short succession. He was buried at West Terrace Cemetery.