William Alexander Alldritt β was born in Manitoba in and used his experience as a pre-war YMCA Physical Director to contribute to the formation and training of his fellow soldiers at training camps in Valcartier and Salisbury Plain.
By , Alldritt was employed in one of the first of these offices in Revelstoke. Alldritt distinguished himself as a machine gunner by covering the retreat of his company during the collapse of the Ypres Salient on 25 April , where he was eventually overpowered and taken prisoner. As a POW in Germany, Alldritt made at least four briefly successful escapes, always to be recaptured. In March , he was transferred to a camp in Scheveningen, near The Hague, Holland, as part of a prisoner exchange, although he technically remained a POW and was not permitted to return home until finally discharged in January James received his early education from his father, and the family lived at various fur-trading posts in New Caledonia until The last leg of their journey to Fort Victoria was accomplished by canoe.
As he grew older Anderson worked as an accountant in Victoria for different businesses and the provincial civil service. He and his wife Mary Shaw Harbel spent their leisure hours as amateur botanists in the lands surrounding the capital.
The B. Ministry of Agriculture was created in when Anderson was appointed to the post of Departmental Statistician, and as such he became the first Deputy Minister. The main functions of the department β Anderson was the only employee β were to collect and interpret statistics to support British immigration and agricultural settlement. Through the reports of his volunteer correspondents in different regions and his occasional trips through the province, Anderson was witness to the often-unintended effects of landclearing operations.
In converting forest land to agricultural spaces, immigrant farmers logged large areas. They removed the huge stumps with stumping machines, gunpowder, and auger-bored holes filled with lamp-oil set alight.
