ANDERSON, JOHN (1820-97) was born at Musselburgh, Scotland, and at an early age moved with his parents into the city of Edinburgh, where he got, not without difficulty, the usual education of an unendowed Scots boy. Apprenticed to a blacksmith, he worked from six in the morning until the same hour in the evening. He attended evening classes at the school of arts, and gained his diploma and medal. For some time after the expiration of his apprenticeship he worked in Edinburgh. Then he went to Liverpool, and obtained employment in a large shipbuilding yard. In 1847 he married at Edinburgh Jane Gibson, and thus came into touch with a Scots gentleman (Mr Dalmahoy), who was prominent in the councils of the Free Church. This friendship was a tangible influence in his later life.

Anderson became interested in the Otago settlement scheme of the Church. He did not join the pioneers, but in the next few years made up his mind to come to New Zealand, and was accepted as a settler under the Church of England association which was colonising Canterbury. Anderson and his wife and their eldest son sailed in the Sir George Seymour. Arriving at Lyttelton (Dec 1850) he walked over the hills to call upon the Deans brothers (q.v.) at Riccarton. Encouraged by their confidence, he decided to start in business at Christchurch rather than at Lyttelton and promptly set up his forge at 'The Bricks,' the terminus on the Avon of the waterway from Lyttelton. There he was fully busy and occasionally in the evening walked across the hills to Lyttelton and carried back the bar iron required for the next day's work. In 1852 Anderson purchased section No. 877 in Cashel street, and laid the foundations of the Canterbury ironworks, with his residence adjoining. The business grew steadily, and in 1857 he imported engines, boilers, and furnace for the first foundry. He operated the first forge; built the first boiler and imported some of the first ploughs and harvesting machines into the province. Anderson sent his two eldest sons to Scotland to complete their education at the Merchiston Castle school. The eldest trained as a mechanical engineer and the second as a civil engineer. The firm not only made boilers, engines, bridges, dredges, viaducts, flourmilling and flaxmilling machinery, but actually undertook the construction of railways. In 1885 they completed the Rakaia-Ashburton Forks branch. In 1887 they undertook a contract for the line from Te Kuiti to the Mokau river. Having in 1887 opened an engineering shop in Lyttelton, in 1890 they launched the steamer John Anderson for the Peninsula trade. In the following year they did an important repair job on the steamer Duke of Buckingham, and later similar work on the Fifeshire and the Tomoana. In 1900 they built the dredge John Townley for the Gisborne harbour board. They built bridges and viaducts in all parts of New Zealand, including the Beaumont bridge over the Clutha river, the Waiau bridge, many bridges on the Midland railway, and several of the North Island viaducts, including those at Makatote and Mangatera.

While steadily building up his business, Anderson was elected a member of the first town board in Christchurch (1862) and five years later, when Christchurch became a municipality, he was elected to the council, and presided at the first meeting. In 1868 he succeeded to the mayoral chair. When Anderson was about to pay a visit to the United Kingdom in 1875 the citizens of Christchurch presented him with a sufficient sum of money to get his portrait painted by a leading artist in Great Britain (A. Glasgow). Just before leaving he co-operated with Reeves, Peacock, Gould, Coster, and others in the flotation of the New Zealand Shipping Co., of which he was a director almost to the time of his death. He was an original shareholder, and an early director of the Christchurch Gas Co., an original director of the Christchurch Press Co., and a director of the Union Insurance Co. He was one of the first members of the Lyttelton harbour board, first chairman of the licensing committee, for some time chairman of the chamber of commerce, and a strong supporter of the Canterbury A. and P. association. He was one of the founders of the Mechanics' Institute, which was eventually merged in the Christchurch public library. Anderson was instrumental with others in bringing to the province its first Presbyterian minister (the Rev Charles Fraser), and he was a trustee of the property of the church. It was largely due to his exertions that a high school was established under the auspices of the church on the Lincoln road.

Mrs Anderson died in Mar 1894, and Anderson on 30 Apr 1897. (See JOHN ELMSLIE).

His son, JOHN ANDERSON (1850-1934), who was educated at Merchiston Castle, became chairman of directors of the firm. He was a member of the Christchurch City Council (1923-25) and many years a director of the New Zealand Shipping Co. and The Press Co., president of the Agricultural and Pastoral association and a life member of the council of Canterbury University College.

Cycl. N.Z., iii (p); The Press, 30 Apr 1897, 21 Dec 1925; Scholefield in The Press, 1 Nov 1930 (p).

Reference: Volume 1, page 24

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