Born in Roseneath manse, Scotland in 1726, son of minister, he was educated after his father’s death by an aunt, a Mrs. Turner to whom he later paid back the cost and was later an officer in the corps that was raised to resist the rebellion of 1745.
He was studied at Glasgow, where in 1756 he became Professor of Oriental Languages and in 1760, Professor of Natural Philosophy; he is made for allowing artisans to attends his lectures in their working clothes.
He planned the fortifications set up to attend Greenock in 1759 and was sympathetic with the French Revolution.
He invented the cannon in which the coil was counteracted by the condensation of air in the carriage.
After unsuccessfully trying to the interest the Government in this gun, he went to Paris in 1791 and offered it to the National Convention.
While there he invented a means of smuggling French newspaper into Germany by the use of small balloons. He lost in lawsuit with the other professors.
In 1786, he published Institute of Physics which he ran to five editions in ten years and in 1800 he wrote on Roman antiquities.
Upon his death he left all his library and apparatus to an educational institute which was later renamed after his but has now become the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
John Anderson
