{{Short description|British Army general}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox military person |honorific_prefix = Lieutenant-General |name= Sir Charles Anderson |honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|KCIE|AM}} |image= Charles Alexander Anderson in 1916.jpg |image_size= |alt= |caption= Anderson in 1916 |nickname= |birth_date= {{birth date|1857|02|10|df=yes}} |birth_place= |death_date= {{death date and age|1940|02|20|1857|02|10|df=yes}} |death_place= Ivybridge, Devon |burial_place= |allegiance= United Kingdom |branch= British Army |service_years= 1876–1920 |rank= Lieutenant-General |unit= |commands= Southern Army, India<br />Commander of British Troops in South China<br />Mohmand Field Force<br />1st Brigade |battles= Jowaki Expedition<br />Second Anglo-Afghan War<br />Third Anglo-Burmese War<br />North-West Frontier<br />First World War |awards= Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29074|page=1686|date=16 February 1915|supp=y}}</ref><br />Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire<br />Albert Medal<br />Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan) |relations= |other_work= }} Lieutenant-General '''Sir Charles Alexander Anderson''', {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|KCB|KCIE|AM}} (10 February 1857 – 20 February 1940) was Commander of British Troops in South China.
==Military career== Anderson was commissioned into the Royal Horse Artillery in 1876.<ref name=lh>[http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/locreg/ANDERSON6.shtml Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives]</ref>
He took part in the Jowaki-Afridi expedition 1877, the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1878 and the Burma expedition in 1885.<ref name=lh/> He went to the North West Frontier in India in 1897.<ref name=lh/> After the outbreak of the Second Boer War saw several senior officers posted to South Africa, Anderson was on 3 March 1900 temporary appointed assistant adjutant-general at head quarters Punjab Command.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue= 27498 |page=7942 |date= 25 November 1902 }}</ref> He was appointed assistant adjutant-general at Mandalay in June 1900, while still officiating in the Punjab,<ref>Hart′s Army list, 1901</ref> but never actually took up this position as he was appointed permanently to the job at Punjab head quarters on 20 May 1901, while also promoted to the substantive rank of colonel.<ref>Hart′s Army list, 1903</ref>
He was awarded the Albert Medal for an event at Ferozepore on 30 August 1906 when a fire broke out in one of the Magazines of the Ferozepore Arsenal. The citation reads: {{blockquote|Major-General Anderson, who directed the subsequent operations from the roof at the edge of the Magazine Compound, at a distance of some 20 yards, having ordered all persons to be cleared out of the fort, and placed a cordon round it at 1,000 yards distance, a steam fire engine was got to work, and the fire party which had been organised commenced their highly dangerous task of clearing cell No. 8 in which was stored some 19,000 lbs of gunpowder; they eventually succeeded in so doing, thereby cutting off the fire by the intervention of an empty cell. Had the powder in this cell exploded, the explosion must have been communicated to cells in an adjoining magazine, where 300,000 lbs of gunpowder were stored.<ref name=AM>''Heroes of the Albert Medal'' by Allan Stanistreet, page 12, Token Publishing, 2002, {{ISBN|1-870192-53-2}}</ref>}}
He was appointed Commander of 1st Brigade for the Bazaar Valley expedition in 1908,<ref name=lh/> and went on to be Commander of the Mohmand Field Force later that year.<ref name=lh/> He was appointed Commander of British Troops in South China in 1910.<ref name=lh/>
He was promoted to lieutenant general on 12 May 1914, while in command of a division.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28830|page=3838|date=12 May 1914}}</ref>
He served in the First World War as General Officer Commanding the Southern Army in India from 1917.<ref name=lh/> He retired in 1920.<ref name=lh/>
In 1921, he was conferred the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the emperor of Japan.<ref>''The London Gazette'': [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32428/supplement/6569 (Supplement) no. 32428. p. 6569]. 19 August 1921. Retrieved 21 September 2016.</ref>
==Family== In 1893 he married Ellen Katherine Russell: they went on to have two sons.<ref name=AM/>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{s-start}} {{s-mil}} {{succession box | before=Robert Broadwood | title=Commander of British Troops in South China | years=1910–1913 | after=Francis Kelly}} |- {{s-bef|before=Sir Robert Scallon}} {{s-ttl|title=GOC-in-C, Southern Army, India|years=1917–1919}} {{s-aft|after=Sir William Marshall}} {{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Charles Alexander}} Category:1857 births Category:1940 deaths Category:British Army lieutenant generals Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire Category:Recipients of the Albert Medal (lifesaving) Category:British Army generals of World War I Category:Royal Horse Artillery officers Category:British military personnel of the Third Anglo-Burmese War Category:British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War Category:19th-century British Army personnel