More than 50 members of the McDouall clan landed in Dunedin at the weekend for a family celebration.
Their name has connections to Oamaru and to Larnach Castle, but local organiser Hamish McDouall said there were representatives from Hong Kong, Germany, Canada and Australia, as well as the United Kingdom.
"For this excursion, we’re very much following the trek of W.C. McDouall, who was one of the people who lifted Oamaru from being a pretty rundown town of vice to the grand Victorian town you see today.
"He worked in the National Bank, as did his son, and then grandson - we’re following the path of his work for our travels in the South Island.
Hamish said a lot of W.C. McDouall’s work involved buying gold off the miners in the Cardrona and carrying the gold in to Dunedin, all the while working for William Larnach.
"To have 50 of us standing at his grave was quite special. We look like the united colours of Benetton, we really are the story of colonisation, we’ve been just about everywhere."
Hamish said it was interesting to wonder what W.C. McDouall would have thought of his descendants "being so diverse and dispersed".
Hong Kong had been "massive" in the McDouall family, as had Canada, but there were also McDouall representatives from Germany, he said.
"It’s just that connection with people ... I know I can go all over the world and meet people who share something with me."
Hamish, who was a winner on the game show Sale of the Century in 1989 and was the champion of TVNZ’s Mastermind in 1990, served two terms as mayor of Whanganui and said the McDouall name had lent itself to a variety of different occupations.
"In New Zealand, there has been four generations of financiers - the stories we hear of W.C. McDouall is that he was so prudent that he only lost money in one venture, which was gold dredging.
"There’s been a lot of military service people with the McDouall name, particularly the navy. There have been also been a lot of police officers.
"I’m not the only McDouall politician, but I’m probably the most recent. Robbie Burns wrote disparagingly of a politician who was a McDouall. We love Burns, but he was no friend to us."
A special dinner was held at Larnach Castle on Saturday, while the representatives of the McDouall clan also have aspirations for another meet-up in Edinburgh in 2030.
Hamish had previously lived in Dunedin, and said it was "nice to be back".
