Alex Sanders
Was given the title "King of the Witches" by a colllective of 16 Alexandrian covens.
He enjoyed the noteriety, but the title had no particular significance and has not been used since.
Alex Sanders is best known as the founder of Alexandrian Wicca, which is quite similar to the more traditional Gardnerian Wicca.

Following information from obtained from site Written and compiled by George Knowles.
Born on : June 6, 1916 (6.6.16, at 6am) in Manchester, England, the oldest of six children
His father was a music hall entertainer who suffered from alcoholism.
As a young boy aged seven, he is believed to have happened upon his grandmother “Mary Biddy” performing some sort of pagan ritual.
Taken by surprise she immediately swore young Sanders to secrecy, and initiated him on the spot claiming, “Now, you are one of us”.
Thus he became her student and started on the path of the Old Religion.

Sanders was a natural psychic who learned all he could from his grandmother.
He claimed that she gave him her “Book of Shadows” to copy and taught him all the rites and magic of the witches.
After her death he tried to contact other witches, but failing he continued his own studies reading all the material he could find.
Working as an analytical chemist at a laboratory in Manchester, he met and then married a co-worker called "Doreen".
Alex was 21 at the time and Doreen 19, together they had two children "Paul and Janice".
Five years later the marriage deteriorated and Doreen took the two children and left him.

Depressed Sanders began drinking; he drifted from one low paid job to another and indulged in sex with both men and women.
He started on the left-hand path, worshiped the devil and studied "Abra-Melin" magic, hoping to use it to gain wealth and fame.
He regularly boosted about his feats of magic and made some amazing claims, like one made by "Aleister Crowley" before him, he claimed to have created a “magical child”.
He created it during a rite of ritual masturbation with the aide of a male assistant.
He says, “the baby disappeared shortly after its creation and grew up as a spirit called Michael”.

"Michael" was the spirit he used during trance work, and it was Michael (he claims) who was responsible for forcing him to act badly at wild parties, to insult people, and generally act in an abominable way.
“Eventually the spirit of Michael settled down and I was able to control it”, he says.
When channeling Sanders used a familiar entity called "Nick Demdike", who claimed to have been a persecuted witch from Lancaster during the trails of the 17th century.

In the early 60’s, Sanders is reported to have sought entrance to some Gardnerian covens, including that run by "Patricia and Arnold Crowther", but they refused to accept him.
Not to be put off so easily, he somehow managed to obtain a copy of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.
This he copied (badly from all accounts) and embellished it with a few of his own amendments.
He then used this as the bases to found his own coven, claiming it to be a copy of his grandmother’s Book of Shadows.

Sanders was a born showman who avidly courted publicity.
He soon attracted a large following.
One of his initiates was "Maxine Morris", a Roman Catholic 20 years his junior.
After her initiation, they handfasted and she became his High Priestess.
They were married in a civil ceremony in 1967 and moved into a basement flat near Nottinghill Gate, London. Later that same year, Maxine bore him a daughter they called "Maya".

From the new home Sanders ran his coven and taught training classes, he claims to have initiated 1,623 witches all-practicing what had become known as the Alexandrian Tradition.
At one meeting, a gathering of sixteen of his covens, Sanders was bestowed with the title of “King of the Witches”.
In 1968-69, Sanders with Maxine appeared in and gave technical advice on a film called “Legend of the Witches”.
During the press preview of the film, they met with and were introduced to "Stewart Farrar", then a reporter for the Reveille.
Stewart would later be initiated by Maxine, and move on to become famous himself as a witch and author.

In 1972 Maxine gave birth to another child, a son they named "Victor", then just a year later in 1973 they separated.
Sanders moved to Sussex were he resided in relative obscurity until he died on the 30th April 1988 after a long battle with lung cancer.
His funeral was a mass media event, Witches and Pagans from all over the country attended to pay their respects.
During the course of the funeral a pre-recorded tape was played in which he declared that his son "Victor" should succeed him as “King of the Witches”.

Victor Sanders had no desire to take up the title and left the country for the United States.
Maxine stay on in London and continued to run a coven and teach the craft, her half-brother "David Goddard" acting as High Priest.
A short time after his funeral, a Witches Council of Elders was convened formed mainly from the Alexandrian tradition.
They decided there would be no successor to the “King of Witches” and the title was discontinued.
He was a very skilled witch, and powerful magician, whose contribution to the newly evolving movement, brought witchcraft back into the public arena and changed the face of Wicca.
He helped to influence many newcomers entering the craft and Alexandrian Wicca remains today one of the largest traditions of the craft.

Sources (Listed on http://www.controverscial.com/Alex%20Sanders.htm) Sources: http://www.controverscial.com/Alex%20Sanders.htm