John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley

The Right Honourable The Viscount Waverley GCB OM GCSI GCIE PC PC (Ire) FRS
Anderson c. 1943
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 24 September 1943 – 26 July 1945
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Kingsley Wood
Succeeded by	Hugh Dalton
Lord President of the Council
In office 3 October 1940 – 24 September 1943
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Neville Chamberlain
Succeeded by	Clement Attlee
Home Secretary Minister of Home Security
In office 4 September 1939 – 3 October 1940
Prime Minister	Neville Chamberlain Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Samuel Hoare
Succeeded by	Herbert Morrison
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office 27 October 1938 – 4 September 1939
Prime Minister	Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by	Herbrand Sackville
Succeeded by	Samuel Hoare
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Hereditary peerage 28 January 1952 – 4 January 1958
Succeeded by	The 2nd Viscount Waverley
Member of Parliament for Combined Scottish Universities
In office 25 February 1938 – 23 February 1950
Preceded by	Ramsay MacDonald
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Governor of Bengal
In office 29 March 1932 – 30 May 1937
Preceded by	Stanley Jackson
Succeeded by	The Lord Brabourne
Personal details
Born	(1882-07-08)8 July 1882 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	4 January 1958(1958-01-04) (aged 75) Lambeth, London, England
Political party	National Independent
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh University of Leipzig

John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC, PC (Ire), FRS (8 July 1882 – 4 January 1958), was a Scottish civil servant and politician who is best known for his service in the War Cabinet during the Second World War, for which he was nicknamed the "Home Front Prime Minister". He served as Home Secretary, Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Anderson shelters are named after him.

A graduate of the University of Edinburgh and the University of Leipzig where he studied the chemistry of uranium, Anderson joined the Civil Service in 1905, and worked in the West African Department of the Colonial Office. During the Great War he headed the staff of the Ministry of Shipping. He served as Under-Secretary for Ireland from 1921 to 1922 during its transition to independence, and as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office from 1922 to 1931 he had to deal with the General Strike of 1926. As Governor of Bengal from 1932 to 1937, he instituted social and financial reforms, and narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.

In early 1938, Anderson was elected to the House of Commons by the Scottish Universities as a National Independent Member of Parliament, and was a non-party supporter of the National Government. In October 1938 he entered Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal. In that capacity, he was put in charge of air raid preparations. He initiated the development of the Anderson shelter, a small sheet metal cylinder made of prefabricated pieces which could be assembled in a garden and partially buried to protect against bomb blast.

After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Anderson returned to hold the joint portfolio of Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security, a position in which he served under Winston Churchill. He retained responsibility for civil defence. In October 1940, he exchanged places with Herbert Morrison and became Lord President of the Council. In July 1941 as Lord President of the Council he was appointed as minister responsible for the British effort to build an atomic bomb, known as the Tube Alloys project. He became the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1943 and remained in the post until the Labour Party's victory in the general election in July 1945.

Anderson left the Commons when the university constituencies were abolished at the 1950 general election. He became Chairman of the Port of London Authority in 1946 and the Royal Opera House in March the same year. He rejected an offer to join Churchill's peacetime administration when it was formed in 1951, and was created Viscount Waverley of Westdean in the County of Sussex in 1952.