Background
John Anderson was born on 8 July 1882 in Edinburgh. His father, David Anderson, ran a shop in Princes Street Arcade and later was hired as director of Valentines, the postcard makers of Dundee.
John Anderson was born on 8 July 1882 in Edinburgh. His father, David Anderson, ran a shop in Princes Street Arcade and later was hired as director of Valentines, the postcard makers of Dundee.
Sir John was educated at George Watsons College, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh University, where he studied chemistry. This led him to Leipzig University, then the leading center for the study of chemistry. He returned to Edinburgh for a year in 1904, studying economics and political science to prepare himself for the civil service entrance exams. He seems to have moved in this direction in order to earn a decent income with which he could support a family.
He took the examination in the summer of 1905 and passed it with exceptionally good marks. As a result he was appointed to the Colonial Office in London, but he never traveled to any of the British colonies during his six and a half years in that department.
In 1913 he was moved to Lloyd George’s new National Insurance Commission, which was run by Sir Robert Morant. A year later he was appointed secretary of the National Insurance Commission. From there he was eventually transferred to become secretary of the new Ministry of Shipping, which in 1917 and 1918 addressed the issue of shipping losses during World War I. In 1919 he became secretary of the Ministry of Health, which also embraced housing, local government, and the poor law; and in October 1919 he was made chairman of the Inland Revenue.
For the next seventeen years, Anderson filled one administrative post after another. On 16 May 1920 he accepted the joint permanent undersecretaryship of the Irish Office, and in March 1922 he became permanent undersecretary at the Home Office, serving under seven home secretaries over the next ten years. In 1931 he accepted the governorship of Bengal, which was one of three such positions in India (Bengal, Bombay, and Madras) reserved for politicians and administrators. He filled this post from 1932 to 1937 with admirable success, consider¬ing that his area, which included Calcutta, contained a potentially combustible mixture of population that was 60 percent Muslim and 40 percent Hindu. He also survived an assassination attempt in 1934. After his return to Britain in December 1937, his career underwent a dramatic shift.
At the beginning of the war, Anderson changed places with Hoare—who reverted to the sinecure of Lord Privy Seal—and became home secretary and minister of home security. Despite this promotion, Anderson did not become a member of Neville Chamberlain’s war cabinet. He continued in that post for another five months after Winston Churchill formed his wartime coalition government in May 1940. However, as home secretary Anderson proved vulnerable on two issues.
The first was the internment of enemy aliens, mainly refugees. Anderson arranged for tribunals to examine their cases, as a result of which very few people were interned. However, in the summer of 1940, when the threat of the German invasion of Britain was high, he overreacted and interned many in the Isle of Man. It is clear that most of those who were interned were anti-Nazi; Colonel Josiah Wedgwood stated in the House of Commons on 22 August 1940 that after some gallant but fatal action by resistance fighters on the continent, “the next of kin have been interned.” Anderson’s vulnerability was further exposed on 7 September 1940 when the London blitz began and he stated his opposition to underground shelters, which he believed would be expensive and unnecessary. He was removed from the Home Office on 8 October 1940 and replaced by Herbert Morrison. However, he was then made a member of the war cabinet (of eight) and chair of cabinet committees, with the title of Lord President of the Council. He fulfilled this role for almost three years until, with the death of Kingsley Wood in September 1943, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer.
Anderson presented two budgets, in April 1944 and April 1945, neither of which was par-ticularly memorable or innovative. In the 1944 budget, with income tax at ten shillings to the pound, surtax rising up to five shillings more, and indirect taxes already heavy, he merely extended the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) arrangements instituted by his predecessor. His 1945 budget was virtually the same.
The Labour victory in the 1945 general election brought Anderson’s ministerial career to an end. However, he remained in the House of Commons, asserting his political independence but accepting a position in the Conservative shadow cabinet. He also rejoined many of the boards of directors he had previously been connected with, most notably that of Imperial Chemical Industries, and became chairman of the London port authority in January 1946. He left the House of Commons in 1950, his university seat having been abolished by Labour. He vainly hoped that it would be restored by the Conservatives, who came to power in 1951; but when this was not done, he accepted the tide of viscount, the normal level of rank awarded to an ex-chancellor of the exchequer and home secretary, in 1952. Over the next five years, he attended the House of Lords regularly, was associated with numerous public bodies, and, in 1952, became chairman of the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Incomes. However, he became ill in 1957 and died at the beginning of January 1958.
Ramsay MacDonald had died in November 1937, leaving vacant one of the three seats re-served for the representatives of graduates of Scottish universities. Anderson ran for this seat as a supporter of the National government, which was a government that brought together Conservative and some Labour and Liberal M.P.s in the 1930s, and declared “I am not a Party man.” He pronounced himself an independent and a non-Conservative, but after his election he proved the opposite. He gave his first speech in the House of Commons in June 1938, on the issue of air-raid precautions. This speech set the tone of his work for the next two and a half years, for the home secretary (Samuel Hoare) asked him to preside over a small parliamentary committee to prepare for the evacuation of nonessential workers in the event of war. This committee reported in July 1938, and its recommendations led Anderson to be designated as civil regional commissioner for London and the home counties in September 1938. At this point he was made Lord Privy Seal in Neville Chamberlain’s government, which meant that he had a seat in the cabinet, and he was given the additional title of minister of defense.
A few days before his death, the Order of Merit was conferred on him as he lay in the hospital. He responded, “The civil service will be pleased about this.” This remark was apt, as most observers will remember him as a civil servant rather than a politician.
Although he was recognized in his day as a bril¬liant politician who invariably rose to the top of every political tree he climbed, Sir John Anderson’s major political contributions are often for-gotten because they coincided with World War II, when military action occupied the national interest.
He married Chrissie Mackenzie in 1907.