The roads, which were at that period little better than horse-tracks, he was bound to repair and alter at his own cost. This Herculean task he lived to accomplish, and thus opened the country from north to south and from east to west. Anderson likewise established an agricultural society and a military college, and laboured in every possible way to civilise and improve his adopted country. The government so highly appreciated Anderson's services that a baronetcy was offered to him, which he declined. It was, however, conferred, in 1813, on his eldest son, James Caleb Anderson. Subsequently Anderson sustained considerable losses in consequence of his speculations in Welsh mines and other undertakings, and a meeting of his creditors was held at the King's Arms Inn at Fermoy on 19 June 1816. The meeting was also attended by several of the nobility and the principal commoners in the south of Ireland, who passed a series of resolutions which constitute a proof of the high estimation in which, despite his misfortunes, Anderson continued to be held. We have been unable to obtain particulars respecting Anderson's subsequent career and the date of his death.
[Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vii. 153; D. Owen Madden's Revelations of Ireland, 268–285; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 133; Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Burke's Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage (1862), 23, 24.]
ANDERSON, JOHN (fl. 1825), genealogist, writer to the Signet, and secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, an institute founded at Inverness in March 1825, wrote a ‘History of the Family of Frisel or Fraser, particularly Fraser of Lovat, embracing various notices illustrative of National Customs and Manners, with original correspondence of Simon Lord Lovat, 1825,’ 4to, pp. 208. He also wrote the prize essay on the ‘State of Science and Knowledge in the Highlands of Scotland … at the period of the Rebellion in 1745, and of their progress up to the establishment of the Northern Institute for the Promotion of Science and Literature in 1825,’ which was published in 1827, and obtained the gold medal offered to competitors by Sir George Stewart Mackenzie. He resided at Walker Street, Coates Crescent, Edinburgh, in 1825, but the dates of his birth and death are not on record.
[Prefaces to Anderson's Works.]
ANDERSON, JOHN (1789–1832), genealogist, of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, was born, 6 June 1789, at Gilmerton House, Midlothian, became a licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and while passing the college examinations was appointed by the Duke of Hamilton (then Marquis of Douglas) first surgeon to the Lanarkshire Militia, and afterwards his own medical adviser, positions which he held to the time of his death. He was very unassuming, of social disposition, and noted for his benevolence. He died 24 Dec. 1832 of inflammation of the brain. His large work, ‘Historical and Genealogical Memoirs of the House of Hamilton,’ 4to, was published at Edinburgh in 1825; a supplement was issued in 1827. For twenty-nine years before his death Anderson was engaged upon a ‘Statistical History of Lanarkshire,’ and also upon a ‘Genealogical History of the Robertsons of Struan,’ but neither of these works appears to have been printed.
[Gent. Mag. ciii. pt. i. 648; Advocates' Library Cat. i. 131.]
ANDERSON, JOHN (1795–1845), a diplomatic agent and writer on questions of Eastern policy and commerce, was born in Scotland (Mission to Sumatra, p. 116), and presumably in Dumfriesshire, in 1795. Receiving an appointment to the civil service of the East India Company in 1813, he became a ‘writer’ in Pulo Penang, or Prince of Wales's Island. He was promoted in 1821, when he held the position of deputy-warehousekeeper and Malay translator to the government, to the rank of ‘factor,’ and to the discharge of the functions of deputy-accountant, deputy-auditor, accountant to the recorder's court, and commissioner to the Court of Requests; the duties of which offices were continued to him on his preferment, in 1823, to be ‘junior merchant.’ By various steps he had become, in 1826, accountant and auditor, accountant-general to the recorder's court, superintendent of lawsuits, and Malay translator, and in 1827 attained the dignity of ‘senior merchant,’ with the offices of secretary to government and Malay translator. Later in the same year he was made a justice of the peace for Penang, Singapore, and Malacca (Singapore Chronicle, 6 Dec. 1827). In 1830 he was ‘at home’ (East India Register and Directory, 1831). His first publication was a work entitled ‘Political and Commercial Considerations relative to the Malayan Peninsula and the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca,’ Prince of Wales Island, 1824. This work consists of reflections on the Siamese conquest of Quedah and Perak; an exposition of the advantages likely to result from declaring Quedah and the whole of the Malayan states under the protection of the British government; and a
