Francis Bine Anderson

Dr Francis Bine Anderson, MRCS

Francis Bine Anderson (born 13 May 1796, baptised 24 August 1796) was a Hessle apothecary and surgeon for forty-nine years in the nineteenth century, practising in Hessle from the 1820’s. By 1840 he had also become the registrar of births and deaths for the Hessle district. Dr Anderson was the medical attendant at the Hessle Asylum. He also held the post of lecturer in Therapeutics at Hull School of Medicine and was, sometime, President of the North Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire BMA.

He was the son of Jacob Andresen of Denmark who married Mary Woolf at Holmpton (East Yorkshire) on 26 June 1782. Andresen became a British subject and altered the spelling of his name to Anderson. The couple had other children: Ann Mary, William, Margaret Wolfe, and James.

F B Anderson is listed in Baines Directory of 1823, in White’s Directory of 1840, when he would have been 43, and in 1846. The 1851 census shows Anderson living on Southgate, Hessle, with Ann, his wife, and Elizabeth Mary their daughter. He is recorded as a Licentiate of the Apothecary Company, Practising Surgeon and Registrar of Births and Deaths for the Hessle District. Iveson’s Survey of Hessle in 1853 has Anderson living at Southfield House, just off Station Road. Melville, 1855, lists him again as a surgeon. In 1858 he is listed as a merchant. In White's Directory of 1867 he is again a surgeon but by 1872 he is recorded as a private resident as he is also in 1879. In 1881 Francis and Annie are recorded in a guest house in Eastbourne together with their daughter Mary. In 1882, 1885 and 1888 only Mrs Anderson is listed at Southfield House.

Southfield House is described (1853) as having a greenhouse, coach house, pleasure gardens and outbuildings. Anderson also owned the area of land marked as Southfield on the 1853 survey, as well as land at the common. The house seems to have been built around 1838 and later lived in by Dr Anderson and his wife Ann, who was the eldest daughter of John Spicer.

Francis Bine Anderson married Ann Spicer (born 1810) on 14 July 1831 at All Saints’, Hessle and they had two daughters, Ann and Mary. They also had an adopted daughter, Anne Latimer Bateson. All of them are named in a window of three panels on the north wall of All Saints’ Church. The panels depict St Anne, the mother of Mary, St Luke and St Agnes. The dedication is at the bottom of each panel and has to be read across all three (it has no upper case lettering). It is also probable that Francis brought up his nephew William. And there is also a possibility of a previous marriage to Susannah (born 1801) who had a daughter, Caroline (1823-88). He died on 14 July 1882, aged 86, his fifty-first wedding anniversary.

Inscription:

“to the glory of god and in loving of memory of francis bine anderson and ann his wife and also of ann spicer anderson their daughter this window is dedicated by their surviving daughter mary elizabeth anderson and their adopted daughter anne bateson latimer easter day april 2^nd 1899” (sic).