Dates

• Existence: 1806 - 1833

Biography

James Anderson was an Edinburgh-born sailor and traveller. He was the eighth child of Robert Anderson and Ann Lothian, brother of William, Robert, Euphemia, Agnes and Charles Anderson.

In 1826, his father found James a place in the office of an Edinburgh solicitor, Maurice Lothian, S.S.C., son of Maurice Lothian, seal-engraver, with whom Robert had financial dealings. However, James had troubles holding a job and quit a few months later.

After leaving Mr Lothian's office, James went as clerk to Mr Tosh, a solicitor in Kirkcaldy. He wrote to his brothers, Robert and Charles William, hoping they might visit him there. Exactly one month later, James was on the look-out for a better job with a Mr Whytoc – but he did not hold this job for a long time either.

In December, 1827, he sailed in the 'Portland' for Sydney, Australia. Captain Christopher Mood's ship of 385 tons was the smallest of four owned by the Australian Company of Leith, established in 1822 for the regular conveyance of goods and passengers between Leith and New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). The ‘Portland’ anchored at Deal, Kent, waiting for favourable winds and James saw convict vessels lying there, bound for the penal settlements in New South Wales. From Ramsgate, he sent home a request for a small sum of money, as the ship would touch at Madeira before crossing the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, and he might get ashore there. The family heard little more from him, apart from his safe arrival at Hobart Town, Tasmania.

Two years later, James was home again. He soon went to London to seek employment in any ship that he could find. But he could get no berth as a seaman, not in a whaler going to the South Seas, nor in a boat sailing to the West Indies. So James decided to go home to Leith. James went on two more voyages, first to Grenada in the West Indies, sailing in February on the ‘Anne Jamieson’. James returned from this voyage nine months later in the ship of Captain Blues, a Leith ship-owner. But he was soon off again and after two years he arrived home in a sorry state. He died within two weeks, worn-out and exhausted, at the age of twenty-seven.

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