On Father's Day

Today is Father's Day in the UK. Back in Anderson's time, a celebration for father's did not exist. But Anderson was a father.

Anderson married a woman born in Antigua; her name was Elizabeth Alexander. We know very little about her but a diary entry made by Henrietta Liston, the wife of a diplomat who visited the Botanic Gardens; her diary is online and accessible here and she too was from Antigua. In her diary, Henrietta notes that Elizabeth had been made very deaf in childhood, but this did not seem to be an issue to Alexander who described her as a of a 'good nature & sense' - he also noted she not wealthy.

Alexander married Elizabeth on June 9th 1789 in St George's, the Anglican church in Kingstown. Exactly a year to the day on 9th June 1790, their daughter Elizabeth was baptised, in the same building The entry states 'Elizabeth daughter of Mr. Alexander Anderson Director of his Majesty's Botanic Garden & Elizabeth his wife'; it appears she was nicknamed Betsey and was according to her cousin was 'sweet'. I have not found any other children born to Alexander and Elizabeth in the church registers, and as such either Betsey was their only child, or Elizabeth must have suffered miscarriages and/or still births.

But looking through archives related to Anderson's botanical artist, John Tyley, in a letter signed by Tyley in 1823, he calls himself Tyley Snr (senior) and as such he too must have been a father - presumably to a son called John Tyley, and as such Tyley junior.

Below is an engraving of Alexander Anderson done in 1789 by his nephew; Anderson would be 49 years old and Betsey approaching her 10th birthday.