Details of Sculptor

Surname

Anderson

Alternative Surname

First Name

Edward

Initial of Surname

A

Year of Birth/Baptism

1696

Flourished

Year of Death

1781

Biographical Details

The son of Edward Anderson, a Chelsea farmer, he was apprenticed in 1720 to Benjamin Denny, ‘citizen and mason of London.’ He became free of the Masons’ Company on 7 January 1730 and set up independently at the ‘Horse-ferry near Chelsea’ early in 1731. He was still described as ‘Mason, Chelsea’ when a search of the Company was carried out around 1740 (Masons’ Co Assistants, fol 3). Between 1747 and 1749 he was employed on stonework at the theatre of Surgeons’ Hall (Archives, Royal College of Surgeons) and a year later he became Master of the Masons’ Company.
It was during Anderson’s term of office that the Company began to experience financial difficulties. The court book for 1750 carries a note that there was to be ‘a frugal dinner next election day and to have neither ladies or musick.’ In 1751 Anderson was appointed churchwarden of Chelsea Old Church. Soon after he became master mason to Chelsea Hospital and he later held the same post at three royal palaces.
In 1778 he was paid £157 17s 10d for three stone obelisks for use at the observatory at Richmond (1), which he charged with unspecified mason’s work and a block of Portland stone. He died on 17 June 1781 and was buried in Chelsea Old Church, where a slab of touch in the floor of the porch commemorates him and his father. The epitaph describes him as mason ‘to His Majesty’s Palaces at Hampton Court, Richmond and Kew.’ The will of an Edward Anderson, mason, was proved on 2 July 1785 (PROB 11/1131).
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 17
Archival References: Masons’ Co, Freemen, fol 1; Court Book, 1695-1722, MS 5304/2, fols 176v-188r; Court Book, 1722-51, MS 5304/3 7 Jan 1731, 14 June 1749 & 4 May 1750