Anderson, Charles Frederick | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

ANDERSON, Charles Frederick (1804-1867) was an architect in New York City who designed the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Waterloo Street, SAINT JOHN, N.B. (1852-55), a distinctive landmark of 19th Century ecclesiastical architecture in Canada. Conceived in the 'Norman Gothic style', it was projected to cost £10,000, and was to be 'the handsomest and the cheapest church in all British America'. A detailed description of his plan appeared in the Morning News [Saint John], 17 November 1852, 2, but the architect was not named. His signature does, however, appear on an inscribed lithographic perspective drawing of the cathedral which is now held in the Chancery Office of the Cathedral (inf. Peter Murphy, Cathedral Archivist, Saint John, N.B.). Services were first held in the Cathedral on Christmas Day, 1855, but many details of the interior finishing were left to Patrick Keely of New York City who completed the work in 1861.
Anderson was born in England on 18 October 1804 and educated in Ireland at Fermoy College, Co. Cork. He claimed to have served an apprenticeship with such renowned English architects as Thomas Harrison (1744-1829), and James Paine (1745-1829). By the mid-1830's he had established a busy practice in the city of Cork, Ireland, and entered into a partnership with another Cork resident and one of Ireland's leading architects Sir Thomas Deane (1792-1871). Anderson emigrated to New York City in 1849, and after briefly collaborating with James Renwick (1818-95), he prepared designs and was awarded a partial premium for his competition proposal for the extension of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. in 1850. He aggressively promoted this scheme for several years, and published a book illustrating his ideas entitled Enlargement of the Capitol of the United States, 1851. While in New York City he designed the House of Correction on Welfare Island (1849), the Emigrant Hospital on Ward's Island (c. 1851), New York City Hospital (c. 1852), and the Washington Street Markets in 1853, and that year produced a book called Anderson's American Villa Architecture, '....containing plans and elevations with a description of eighteen villas and three country churches'. This was the first volume in a projected seven volume set, but the remaining parts were never published. In 1859 he moved to Washington, D.C. and the following year, he won the competition for the vast University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee (1860). Anderson retired from active practice after 1865 and died on his farm in Prince George's County, Maryland on 9 July 1867 (obituary The National Republican [Washington, D.C.], 12 July 1867, 3; inf. Daniel W. Randle, Austin, Tex.; Pamela Scott, A Directory of District of Columbia Architects 1822-1960, 1999, 3).