Researching Hugh Anderson

Born in St. John's, Anderson was the son of politician John Anderson. Following an education at Bishop Feild College and Edinburgh Academy, the first few years of his career was at the family business in St. John's, after which Anderson entered the military and rose to the rank of Captain. In 1921 he became manager of a theatrical business in New York City owned by his brother John Murray Anderson. Anderson's dramatization of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Suicide Club received favourable reviews in 1929. He also co-authored the libretto for Lola Carrier Worrell's musical Babylonia.

Under the pen name of Hugh Abercrombie he wrote the musical Auld Lang Syne, and in 1954 he published, under his own name, Out Without My Rubbers, the memoirs of John Murray Anderson.

Anderson was made MBE. He died at his home in Queens, New York.

An insurance broker by trade, Anderson was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1974 federal election representing the riding of Comox—Alberni, British Columbia. The Liberal MP served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment from 1977 to 1978 and then as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development until the 1979 federal election in which he was defeated.

Anderson has remained active in public life, serving since the 1990s as Chair of the Port Alberni Port Authority. He died on April 22, 2015.

Educated at by F. W. Goldsmith at Hampstead and at Harrow School, Anderson matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge at Michaelmas 1884, and graduated B.A. in 1887 (Natural Sciences Tripos; Scholar 1886–89; Part I, first Class, 1887; Part II, first Class, 1888); M.A. 1891; M.B. & B.Chir. 1891; M.D. 1898, completing his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.

Anderson served as a Fellow of Caius 1897–1912, and as Master of Caius 1912–1928. He was the Chairman of the Cambridge University Press in 1918. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1907. A monument to him is in the Gonville and Caius College Chapel.

He is buried at Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground, Cambridge.His papers are held at Janus Library, Cambridge.

He married in 1894 Jessie Mina Innes d.1946, daughter of Surgeon-General Francis William Innes CB; they had two children: Austin Innes, born 1897 – ?, and Mary Desiree, 1902 – 1973, an author. Lady Jessie Anderson is buried with her husband, in the same grave in Cambridge.