Sir William Anderson, KCB (5 January 1835 at Saint Petersburg – 11 December 1898 at Woolwich Arsenal) was an English engineer who also served as director-general of the Ordnance Factories from 1889 to 1898.
In 1872 he presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers an account of the sugar factory at Aba-el-Wakf (Minutes of Proceedings, 1872–3, xxxv.
Anderson next turned his attention to gun mountings of the Moncrieff type, and designed several for the British government, which were made at the Erith works.
In 1876 he designed twin Moncrieff turret mountings for 40-ton guns for the Russian admiralty, which were made at Erith and proved highly successful.
To render the waters of the river Nethe, which was little better than a sewer, available for drinking purposes, he invented, in conjunction with Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, a revolving iron purifier, which proved perfectly effectual.
[3] The duties of this post, mainly focused at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, prevented him from continuing his work in relation to the cordite machinery, which was committed to his eldest son.
Anderson made many improvements in the details of the management of the Arsenal, and introduced greater economy into its administration.
[1] During the 1890s, Anderson's continuing interest in education led to him becoming a trustee of the newly established Woolwich Polytechnic; he was a member of its governing body in 1893, and later (1895) represented the War Department on its board of governors.
His Howard Lectures on the Conversion of Heat into Work, delivered before the Society of Arts in 1884 and 1885, were published in 1887 in the Specialist's Series.
[2] He died at Woolwich in 1898 and was buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, Erith, where a monument was erected in his memory.