Lieutenant Colonel Charles Groves Wright Anderson, VC, MC (12 February 1897 – 11 November 1988) was a South African-born soldier, Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, a member of the Australian House of Representatives, and a farmer. After growing up in Africa and being schooled in England, Anderson served as an officer during the East African campaign against the Germans during the First World War, reaching the rank of captain and being awarded the Military Cross. After the war, Anderson settled as a farmer in Kenya. In the early 1930s, he married an Australian woman and later moved to Australia, where he became a grazier. In 1939, he joined the Militia, Australia's part-time military force, before volunteering for overseas service after the outbreak of the Second World War. In early 1941, he was deployed to Malaya as part of the 8th Division, where he rose to command the 2/19th Battalion against the Japanese following their invasion of Malaya in December of that year. For his actions around Muar in January 1942, he was awarded the Victoria Cross before being captured at the end of the fighting on Singapore. He spent over three years in Japanese captivity, before being released at the end of the war. In the post war years, Anderson returned to farming and served as a federal parliamentarian, representing the Division of Hume twice between 1949 and 1961, before retiring. He died in Canberra at the age of 91. Early life Anderson was born on 12 February 1897 in Cape Town, South Africa, to Scottish parents. His father, Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, an auditor and newspaper editor, had been born in England, while his mother, Emma (Maïa) Louise Antoinette, née Trossaert had been born in Belgium. The middle child of five, when Anderson was three the family moved to Nairobi in Kenya, where his father began farming. He attended a local school until 1907, when his parents sent him to England. He lived with family members until 1910, when he was accepted to attend St Brendan's College in Bristol as a boarder. He remained in England until the outbreak of the First World War. Returning to Kenya, in November 1914, Anderson enlisted as a soldier in the local forces, before later being allocated to the Calcutta Volunteer Battalion as a gunner. On 13 October 1916, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the King's African Rifles. He fought