ANDERSON, Adam, a Scottish economist, was born in 1692, and died in London on the 10th January 1765. He was a clerk for forty years in the South Sea House, where he published a work entitled Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, containing a History of the Great Commercial Interests of the British Empire (1762, 2 vols. fol.) A third edition appeared in 1797-9, in four vols. 4to, the last volume being an appendix and continuation by the editor, Mr Walton.
ANDERSON, Alexander, an eminent mathematician, was born at Aberdeen about 1582. In his youth he went to the Continent, and settled as a private teacher or professor of mathematics at Paris, where he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometrical and algebraical tracts, which are conspicuous for their ingenuity and elegance. He was selected by the executors of the celebrated Vieta to revise and edit his manuscript works, a task which he discharged with great ability. He afterwards produced a specimen of the application of geometrical analysis, which is distinguished by its clearness and classic elegance. The works of Anderson amount to six thin quarto volumes, which are now very scarce. As the last of them was published in 1619, it is probable that the author died soon after that year, but the precise date is unknown.
ANDERSON, Sir Edmund, a younger son of an ancient Scottish family settled in Lincolnshire, was born at Broughton or Flixborough about 1540, and died in 1605. He was some time a student of Lincoln College, Oxford, and removed from thence to the Inner Temple, where he applied himself diligently to the study of the law, and became a barrister. In 1582 he was made lord chief-justice of the common pleas, and in the year following was knighted. He was one of the commissioners appointed to try Queen Mary of Scotland in 1586. His works are—1. Reports of many principal Cases argued and adjudged in the time of Queen Elizabeth in the Common Bench, Lond. 1644, fol.; 2. Resolutions and Judgments on all the Cases and Matters agitated in all Courts of Westminster in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Lond. 1655, 4to.
ANDERSON, James, LL.D., was born at the village of Hermiston, in the county of Edinburgh, in the year 1739. At an early age he lost his parents, who were in humble life, but this did not interrupt his education, and being desirous to obtain an acquaintance with chemistry as a means of professional success, he attended the lectures of Dr Cullen. Enlarging the sphere of his employments, Anderson forsook the farm in Mid-Lothian which his family had occupied for several generations, and rented in Aberdeenshire a farm of 1300 acres of unimproved land. But previous to this he had become known to men of letters by some essays on planting, which, under the signature “Agricola,” he published in the Edinburgh Weekly Magazine, in 1771. After withdrawing from his northern farm, where he resided above twenty years, he settled in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and continued to interest himself in agricultural questions. In 1791 he projected a periodical publication called The Bee, consisting of miscellaneous original matter, which attained the extent of eighteen octavo volumes. It was published weekly, and a large proportion of it came from his own pen. From this period till 1803 he issued a number of publications chiefly on agricultural subjects, which had no small influence in advancing national improvements. Dr Anderson, after a gradual decline, partly occasioned by excessive mental exertion, died in 1808.
ANDERSON, James, a learned and industrious antiquary of Edinburgh, was born there August 5, 1662, and educated to the legal profession, in which he became a writer to the Signet. His reputation as a historian stood so high, that just before the Union the Scottish parliament commissioned him to prepare for publication what remained of the public records of the kingdom, and in their last session voted a sum of 1940 sterling to defray his expenses. At this work he laboured for several years with great judgment and perseverance; but it was not completed at his death in 1728. The book was published posthumously in 1739, edited by Thomas Ruddiman, under the title Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotiæ Thesaurus. The preparation of this great national work involved the author in considerable pecuniary loss; and soon after his death, the numerous plates, engraved by Sturt, were sold for £530. These plates are now lost, and the book has become exceedingly scarce. After the union of the crowns, Anderson was appointed in 1715 postmaster-general for Scotland, as some compensation for his valuable labours; but in the political struggles of 1717 he was deprived of this office, and never again obtained any reward for his important services to his country.
ANDERSON, John, natural philosopher, was born at Roseneath in Dumbartonshire in 1726. In 1756 he became professor of Oriental languages in the University of Glasgow, where he had finished his education; but in 1760 he was appointed to the chair of natural philosophy, a subject more suited to his tastes and acquirements. In this department he laboured assiduously to apply scientific knowledge to the improvement of the mechanical arts, studying industrial processes in the various workshops of the city, and thus qualifying himself to be the scientific instructor of the artizan. He opened a class for the instruction of mechanics in the principles of their arts, in which his familiar extempore discourses were illustrated by appropriate experiments. He is thus to be regarded as the father of those Mechanics Institutions which have since become so common. His anxiety for the improvement of artizans was not confined to his personal exertions. Shortly before his death in 1796, he bequeathed the whole of his property to 81 trustees, for the purpose of founding an institution for educational purposes in Glasgow. He had seemingly intended it as a sort of rival to the university in which he was himself a professor; for his will mentions the founding of four halls or colleges with nine professors in each, for the faculties of arts, medicine, law, and theology. But the trustees found the funds entrusted to them utterly inadequate to so gigantic a scheme; and they contented themselves with founding what is now called, in its official calendar, Anderson's University. This institution was opened in 1797, by the appointment of Dr Thomas Garnett as professor of natural philosophy, who commenced with a popular course of lectures, which was attended by a considerable audience of both sexes. In 1798 a professor of mathematics and geography was appointed; and the institution has since had the aid of many able teachers. In 1799 Dr Garnett was succeeded by Dr Birkbeck, who had the merit of introducing in the institution a system of gratuitous scientific instruction, given annually to 500 operative mechanics. On the removal of Dr Birkbeck to the London Royal Institution, he was succeeded by Dr Andrew Ure in 1804; and Dr Ure by Dr William Gregory. In recent years the institution has received several munificent endowments from private persons, and its staff of teachers has been consequently greatly strengthened. It now possesses a complete medical school, whose certificates are recognised by the various examining bodies both in England and Scotland. In 1872-3 there were 460 medical students, and 2508 persons in all attended the various classes of the institution.
