Anderson, Alexander; and, 'Surfaceman, ' Anderson's pseudonym

The Scottish poet, Alexander Anderson, was born in Kirkconnel, a village by the River Nith, in Dumfriesshire, on 30 April 1845. He was educated at Crocketford, Kirkcudbrightshire, to where the family had moved when he was aged three. Later on, when he was sixteen, the family moved back to Kirkconnel. Anderson first started his working life at a quarry, then he became a surfaceman, or navvy, on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. During the sixteen years he worked as a surfacemen he read and studied and taught himself French language and grammar, acquired a knowledge of German, Italian and Spanish, and wrote poetry. On his first appearance in print - in The People's Friend a Thomson title, in Dundee - he became recognised as a local poet. By the early-1880s, Anderson was in Edinburgh. He was Secretary to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, 1883-1886, and he was also Assistant Librarian at Edinburgh University, 1880-1883, and 1886-1905. His publications include A song of labour and other poems (1873), The two angels and other poems (1875), Songs of the rail (1878), and Ballads and sonnets (1899). Also, while still a surfaceman, he translated several of the poems of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) from German. Anderson travelled widely in Scotland and many of his poems reflect this, with titles such as A Nithsdale idyll and The hills and burns at hame . Many of his Scottish poems were about child life, Cuddle doon, The bogie man, and The sand man . Alexander Anderson died on 11 July 1909. His Later poems were published in 1912 after his death.

From the guide to the Papers of Alexander Anderson (1845-1909), 1873-1908, (Edinburgh University Library)