| | LEVEL OF DESCRIPTION: | Fonds | | No.: | PR0421 | | TITLE: | Peter Anderson fonds | | CREATOR: | Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Anderson | | DATE RANGE: | 1882-1952 | | EXTENT: | 0.05 m of textual records. – 28 negatives | | ADMINISTRATIVE | | HISTORY/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Anderson was born on the island of Funen, off the coast of Denmark, on April 24, 1868. In 1888 he immigrated to Canada and began to work in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Later he hunted and trapped in northern Manitoba before moving west and arriving in Edmonton in 1891. After working on a variety of construction jobs, he eventually formed his own brick company in 1899 called Anderson’s Brickyard. Anderson married Mary Allan on January 2, 1895, and together they had one son, Bert, and three daughters, Ethel, Jeanne, and Fransine.In 1907 Anderson wrote the military officers examination and joined the 101st Regiment, Edmonton Fusiliers as a Captain. In 1914 he was part of the first contingent of Canadian soldiers in World War I to go overseas. In England his regiment was dismantled and Anderson was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, Queen’s Own Regiment. He was captured on April 24, 1915 at the second battle of Ypres in Belgium, and spent three months in a German Prisoner of War (POW) Camp. In September of that year Anderson escaped from the camp and made his way back to England via Denmark where he was then received by the King of England and decorated. He was the first Canadian to successfully escape from a German POW Camp in World War I.Later in the war, Anderson organized a sniping and training school, conducted troops to France, and became a member of the Canadian Syren Force, helping to command the operations of Allied troops for the Murmansk expedition into the Russian Arctic. At the end of his service, Anderson returned to live in Edmonton, Alberta until the 1930’s when he retired to Vancouver, British Columbia. He died in 1945. | | CUSTODIAL HISTORY: | Mrs. Ethel Moore, a daughter of Peter Anderson, deposited these records in the Provincial Archives of Alberta in 1970. | | SCOPE AND CONTENT: | Fonds consists of records dealing mainly with - Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Anderson’s military career and includes correspondence, certificates, biographies, newspaper clippings, business letterheads, poetry, partial manuscripts, and photographs. | | LANGUAGE NOTE: | The material is in English. | | RELATED RECORDS: | Other records pertaining to Lt.Col. Peter Anderson can be found in accession PR1976.341. | | GENERAL NOTE: | A biographical sketch, written by Lieutenant-Colonel. Peter Anderson, from the PR0043 Ernest Brown collection is included in Series VI in this fonds. |
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