In 1896 all the volumes were out of print.
In October 1880 Anderson passed from the exhausting twelve hours a day with pick and shovel at 17s. a week to the lighter appointment of assistant librarian in Edinburgh University. Learned leisure failed to stimulate his poetic impulses; henceforward he wrote little but occasional verses, mainly when on holiday amongst old friends at Kirkconnel. For private circulation he printed some translations from Heine; and from time to time he revised, amended, or extended a long blank verse poem on the experiences of Lazarus of Bethany in the world of spirits, and after restoration to life. In 1883 he left the university to become secretary to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, a library and lecture society. But in 1886 he returned to the university library, where at his death on 11 July 1909, he had for five years been acting chief librarian. He was unmarried. In Edinburgh he conciliated respect and affection, not less by the native dignity and force of his character than by his geniality and social gifts, although in later years ill-health made him much of a recluse.
Anderson's poetical work shows lyrical power, generous feeling, and vivid vision, as well as a command of metre and a literary equipment that would be note-worthy in a writer of liberal education and in a cultured environment. He had no faculty for prose writing. His most characteristic achievement was as laureate of the rail (after the manner of the 'Pike County Ballads' or Bret Harte) and of child life in humble Scottish homes. In his best-known poems the vernacular of the south-west of Scotland is employed with verve and discretion. Few anthologies of Scots poems now lack one or two of Surfaceman's, and several of the railway and child poems are popular recitations.
In 1912 a modest memorial was erected in Anderson's native village; his scattered and unpublished pieces were collected for issue; and the publication of the Lazarus poem was contemplated.
[Dundee Advertiser, 6 Jan. 1896; Frank Miller, The Poets of Dumfriesshire, 1910; private information; personal knowledge.]
ANDERSON, GEORGE (1826–1902), Yorkshire batsman, was born at Aiskew near Bedale, Yorkshire, on 20 Jan. 1826; he early showed athletic aptitude as a high and long jumper and as a cricketer; his cricket was greatly improved by the visit to Bedale of the eminent bowler William Clarke in 1848. Employed as a clerk in youth, he made the game his profession in early manhood. Anderson first appeared at Lord's in 1851, when he played for the North v. South, and for the Players v. Gentlemen in 1855. He was from 1857-64 a member of the All England XI captained by William Clarke and George Parr [q. v.]. He visited Australia with Parr's team in the winter of 1863, but met with little success. His most successful season was that of 1864, when in first-class matches he averaged 42 runs an innings, and scored 99 not out for Yorkshire v. Notts. He captained the Yorkshire team for a few seasons; in May 1869 a match was played for his benefit at Dewsbury between the All England XI and the United All England XI.
Anderson was a kindly, handsome man of fine physique; he was six feet high, weighed 14½ stone, and was of great strength. His style as a batsman was described as 'the model of manliness'; he had a good defence, and though he took time to get set, he was in his day the hardest and cleanest hitter of the best bowling. In 1862 he made a drive for eight runs at the Oval when playing for the North of England v. Surrey. Another hit by him off Bennett, the Kent slow bowler, was reputed to have pitched farther than any previously recorded at the Oval. On retiring from professional cricketing, Anderson became in 1873 actuary of the Bedale Savings Bank, and held the office until the bank's failure in 1894. He died at Bedale on 27 Nov. 1902.
[The Times, 28 Nov. 1902; Daft's Kings of Cricket (portrait, p. 61); W. Caffyn's 71 not out (portrait, p. 39); Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack, 1902, p. lxxx; Haygarth's Scores and Biographies, iv. 277, xiv. p. xxxi; R. S. Holmes, History of Yorkshire County Cricket, 1904; information from Mr. P. M. Thornton.]
ANDERSON, Sir THOMAS McCALL (1836–1908), professor of practice of medicine in the University of Glasgow, born in Glasgow on 9 June 1836, was second of three sons of Alexander Dunlop Anderson, M.D. medical practitioner in Glasgow, who in 1852 was president of the faculty of physicians and surgeons of Glasgow, by his wife Sara, daughter of Thomas McCall of Craighead, Lanarkshire. His father's family was descended on the maternal side from William Dunlop [q. v.], principal of Glasgow University, 1690-1700; and in the male line from John Anderson (1668-1721) [q. v.], the stout defender of presbyterianism, and
