Celebrating 100 years in the district

• Published date: 04 May 2023

ONE hundred years ago, William Lyall Anderson (known as WL or Bill) arrived at Cluden Station with his pack horse, Randy, and a spaniel dog

WL Anderson was just 21 years old. He had come over the steep Thompson’s Track but it was hard to confirm if he actually rode the horse.

‘‘I have found photos of him with a horse, though Andy [brother] said he never rode a horse,’’ Spin Lucas (nee Anderson) said.

‘‘I remember he used to have a horse and gig. I remember going in it,’’ her other brother Peter ‘‘PL’’ Anderson said.

Of Swedish and Irish descent, WL was born at the turn of the 20th century at Benhar, near Balclutha.

He spent a significant period of time in the Waipiata Sanatorium recovering from tuberculosis before venturing further into Central Otago.

At first, he led a somewhat lonesome lifestyle, camping near Cluden Stream in the station’s concrete cook shop for seven years and working as a rabbiter and musterer.

WL eventually found his for-ever home at Tarras with his school-teacher wife, Sheila (nee Malthus), and their four children.

The Andersons are not properly known by their given names.

Peter Lyall Anderson (born in 1940) is PL, Andrew Perceval Anderson (born in 1941) is Andy, Elizabeth Kaye Anderson (born 1944) is Kate and Marion Lesley Anderson (born 1946) is Spin.

A memories book produced by the family a few years ago is packed with anecdotal history, newspaper clippings and photos. It includes the tale of WL’s father, Andrew Anderson of Sweden, who arrived in New Zealand in 1886 as a 20-year-old ship worker.

He had been working at sea since the age of 10 and decided to jump ship. Eventually settling in Benhar, in later life Andrew proved difficult to entice away from his garden and bee hives.

He and his wife Annis (nee Lyall) had five sons and two daughters. WL was their second-born.

When WL first arrived in the Tarras district, he started work on the Tarras irrigation race but soon got bored with that, so he left to work on his own account as a full- time rabbiter.

His brother Duncan joined him for a couple years to live at the cook shop, where WL grew carrots in a nearby garden.

WL was first in the district to get a radio and the cookshop soon became a popular gathering spot.

He also mustered for Cluden landowner Major Jenkins, which sparked WL’s long interest in sheep dogs and success at dog trials.

‘‘Cluden was a renowned place to work for, even in my day,’’ PL Anderson said.

In the 1930s, WL and his brother Duncan purchased a Maori Point...