Anderson was ed­u­cat­ed at Trin­i­ty Coll­ege, Dub­lin (BA 1862, LLD 1875), and was a mem­ber of the Ply­mouth Breth­ren, some­times preach­ing with John Nel­son Dar­by. He event­u­al­ly went to work with the Home Of­fice; in 1887 he be­came Sec­re­ta­ry of the Pri­son Com­miss­ion­ers, and in 1888 As­sist­ant Com­miss­ion­er of the Crim­in­al In­ves­ti­ga­tion De­part­ment of Scot­land Yard (this was around the time Jack the Rip­per was ter­ror­izing Lon­don). In 1901, An­der­son re­tired and was made a Knight Com­mand­er of the the Or­der of the Bath. His works in­clude:

• The Bud­dha of Christ­en­dom (Lon­don: Hod­der and Stough­ton, 1899)
• Criminals and Crime, 1907
• The Light­er Side of My Of­fi­cial Life, 1910
• Sidelights on the Home Rule Move­ment
• The Com­ing Prince
• The Bi­ble and Mo­dern Cri­ti­cism
• The Bi­ble or the Church
• Daniel in the Cri­tics’ Den
• A Doubt­er’s Doubts About Sci­ence and Re­li­gion
• Entail of the Co­ve­nant
• Forgotten Truths
• The Gos­pel and Its Min­is­try
• The Honour of His Name
• Human Des­ti­ny
• The Lord from Hea­ven
• Misunderstood Texts of the New Test­a­ment
• Pseudo-Criticism
• Redemption Truths
• The Si­lence of God
• Types in He­brews
• Unfulfilled Pro­phe­cy
• The Way

1. Safe in Je­ho­vah’s Keeping