William John Anderson

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William John Anderson was born on 22 May 1842 at Port Louis, Mauritius.^1,2 He was the son of John Anderson Esq.² William John Anderson was a employee of the Mauritian Civil Service in 1864.³

He married Emma Frances Baker, from a Congregational family, daughter of Reverend Edward Knight Baker and Ruth Wayte, on Friday, 24 June 1864 He was 22 and his wife Emma was 21..³

William and Emma were both ill with a fever January 1867 and went to their daughter Euphemie to Grand River, in Port Louis, Mauritius.⁴

Early in 1868 Emma was "labouring under a sad nervous affection" after the death of her two young daughters, all in the space of a year. She wrote a melancholy poem called 'The Trial' in which she wrote:

'But life, not death
Is mine; like those steep mountains far away
The long years rise before me cold and grey,
To tread with panting breath.⁵'

Both of her children died young, perhaps giving rise to the suggestion that she died childless.³

His wife Emma died 12 April 1868 at the age of 25, leaving him a widower at age 25.⁶

A year after Emma died, her widower William published a book of her poems - 'Colonial Poems' - in London. In a preface, he describes her as "a pious, gentle and thoughtful spirit" and reports that she "expressed a wish that her fugitive and scattered verses, some of which had appeared in Australian Periodicals under the signature 'Frances', should be collected and presented in a permanent form to her parents and others whom she had loved".⁷

He married Mary-Anne Josephine Paddle, on Thursday, 27 October 1870 at Port Louis. He was 28 and his wife Mary-Anne was 25..^2,8 William lived on 6 August 1885 at Sydney.²

He married Georgina Marie Augusta Paddle, in 1892 at Hobart..⁹

William died on 28 September 1917 at Auburn Vale, New South Wales, at age 75.¹