The son and grandson of Wesleyn ministers, he was born on 4 July 1870. His father was the Rev. Theophilus D. Anderson (died 1926). In 1896 he went out to Canton, China as a medical misionary and from 1903 served at Charles Wenyon's Fatsham hospital until 1924, with the superintendency of a newly formed Mau Cheung Sha Circuit as a further responsiblity. He died on 21 May 1933.