Watchmaker, 50 High Street
Joe was a watchmaker, jeweller, optician and fishing tackle retailer. He was also an agent for an umbrella and sunshade repair company.
He was an enthusiastic freemason and lawn bowls player, sometimes combining the two activities in masonic bowling competitions (see the photo below).
His daughter Myrtle married John Halliday, a Duke of Buccleuch gamekeeper who was killed in 1917 while with the 16th Highland Light Infantry. She was named after her grandmother (1829-1906), a tobacconist and confectioner in Market Place. Coincidentally her grandmother’s maiden name was also Anderson, to which she reverted after separating from her husband James Graham, so the better-known Myrtle Anderson at the time was the grandmother.
Below is James Graham’s tobacconist shop which Myrtle took over after separation. It also sold fishing tackle; Joe Anderson may have taken on this activity through his wife’s family interests.
Joe’s son Drummond followed him into the watchmaking business and served in motor transport in the Army Service Corps in the Great War.
Joe’s younger son Arnold was adopted (for unknown reasons), the son of Jessie Galloway, a solicitor’s daughter in Edinburgh, and served with the 2nd Gordon Highlanders. He emigrated to Queensland, Australia, where he was a farmer.
Joe is mentioned five times in Lawson Cairns’s 1915 war diary, written near the Western Front:
1st August: Recd. parcel from Galashiels also watch back from Joe Anderson.
26th August: Received letter from Aunt Marie & watch holder from Joe Anderson.
27th August: Wrote letter to Joe Anderson & Aunt Marie.
11th October: Received parcel from Uncle T., H & C Wilson, Gala & Langholm Soldiers Committee & letter from Joe Anderson.
16th October: Wrote to Mrs Marks & Joe Anderson.
| Born | Leith, Midlothian, 1853 |
| Parents | Thomas Anderson (1835-), Eliza Drummond (1821-) |
| Siblings | Third of one sister and three brothers |
| Marriage | Mary Graham, shopkeepers’ daughter (1848-1937) |
| Children | Myrtle (1878-1958), Eliza (1880-1882), Drummond (1886-1947), Arnold (1887-1965) |
| Died | 50 High Street, Langholm, 1918, aged 65 |