A surname derived from the popular given name of ‘Andrew’, in turn derived from the Greek ‘Andreas’, indicating ‘manly’, ‘Anderson’ has a number of points of origin. Later becoming a friend of Emily Davies, the early feminist and co-founder of Girton College, Cambridge, she determined on a career in medicine and, accordingly, in 1860 she studied to become a surgery nurse at Middlesex Hospital, London. Born in Aberdeen in 1582, Alexander Anderson was the mathematician who made a significant contribution to the study of both algebra and geometrical analysis.

The hospital was amalgamated in 2001 with the Obstetric Hospital to become the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital and, after relocating, is now the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson wing at University College Hospital. An indication of the high honours and distinction that the Andersons have gained over the centuries is that a number of baronetcies have been created for bearers of the name ­– a baronetcy being an honour first granted in England in the early 1300s.

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Also in the sciences, Carl Anderson, born in New York City in 1905 and who died in 1991, was the American physicist who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Victor Hess, for their discovery of the positron – the ‘anti-matter’ counterpart of the electron.

Bearers of the name have stamped their mark on the historical record through a rich variety of endeavours and pursuits.Clan membership, as interpreted by families of the Highlands of Scotland, was a matter of convenience or expediency. It was something which was used and changed as politics or pragmatism dictated. Most Andersons south of Aberdeen simply began to name themselves after Saint Andrew the patron saint of their country. In the north, they followed the tradition of taking the clan Chief’s name and became “son of Andrew”. In common with Scandinavian ways, the family tended to be footloose and to rely on first names. An Icelandic phone book today, for example, lists people not by their last name, but by their first name.

Although ‘Anderson’, in this case in the now redundant spelling variant of ‘Andreu’, appears on record more than 170 years after the adoption of surnames was popularised in the wake of the Norman Conquest, the ancestors of bearers of what would become the surname were present on English shores for a considerable period before the Conquest. One of his grandsons, meanwhile, was the mathematician James Gregory, who in 1663 published a treatise describing a design for a reflecting telescope. While they settled in Badenoch in Inverness-shire, they had to contend with an unsavoury neighbour, the ‘Wolf of Badenoch’. This unpleasant character collected a band of renegades, stole lands from the Bishop of Moray and in 1390 burned Elgin Cathedral. Following this he was ex-communicated. But the Wolf turned out to be Alexander, Earl of Buchan and a brother of King Robert III. One particularly infamous bearer of the otherwise proud name of Anderson was William T. Anderson, better known to posterity as “Bloody Bill.” Within an astonishingly short space of time, Norman manners, customs and law were imposed on England – laying the basis for what subsequently became established ‘English’ custom and practice.Those Normans who had fought on his behalf were rewarded with the lands of Anglo-Saxons, many of whom sought exile abroad as mercenaries. In the words of a 20th century Anderson “My grandfather told my father, and he told me that our family had changed their name from Macgregor to Campbell and then to Anderson, when it was felt that a change was called for.” Just before battle commenced, a man was found to be absent from the Chattan side. His place was taken by a smith from Perth called Henry Bow Anderson or Hal O’ the Wynd. The battle was bloody and furious. By the end of the hours of fighting all the warriors were dead or wounded. The only man unscathed was the late substitute, Hal. This means that flowing through the veins of many bearers of the name today may well be the blood of those Germanic tribes who invaded and settled in the south and east of the island of Britain from about the early fifth century.