Details of Sculptor

Surname

Anderson

Alternative Surname

First Name

William, of Perth

Initial of Surname

A

Year of Birth/Baptism

Flourished

Year of Death

1867

Biographical Details

The son of David Anderson, he continued the family business at County Place, Perth after his father’s death in 1847. He showed a figure of a Highlander throwing the putting-stone with reliefs illustrating highland games on the pedestal at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (3). In the same year he went into partnership with Alexander Christie. He received his first important commission, for a bust of Robert Peel for the Peel Memorial in Forfar, in 1852 (9). A review of the work in the Illustrated London News described Anderson as a young sculptor of promise and noted that he had executed the bust for a nominal fee (ILN, 21 May 1853, 397). The Forfar memorial is reputed to be the first permanent memorial to Peel erected in Scotland. In 1854 Anderson executed a heroic statue of Burns, which he presented to his native town (5). It was described by the Builder as ‘of manly make’ and ‘enveloped in the homely folds of a Scottish plaid’ (Builder, 1854, 295). The sculptor died at Perth in 1867.
Literary References: Woodward 1977, vol 1, pt 2, 8-9