Charlton is in the Hokonui riding of the county of Southland, and in the electorate of Mataura. The flag station of the same name, on the Dunedin-Invercargill line, is four miles from Gore and Mataura, and stands at an elevation of 198 feet above the level of the sea. At the census of 1901, the village had a population of 108, and the local public school has an average attendance of twenty-eight pupils. The post office, which is known as Middle-vale, is conducted at the schoolhouse, and mails are received, and despatched, every day. The country, which is flat, is devoted to agriculture and pasturage, and the district extends from the western bank of the Mataura river to the foot of the hills.

Keir, Alexander , Farmer, Charlton. Mr Keir was born in 1844, in Perthshire, Scotland, and arrived at Lyttelton, in 1863, by the ship “Mermaid.” He spent two years at the West Coast diggings, and on returning to Canterbury commenced farming at Halkett, on the West Coast road, where he remained for ten years. In 1881, Mr Keir sold out, and acquired his present property of 100 acres in the Charlton district, and, in addition to carrying on farming, he has been interested in dredging, in which he has met with fair success. Mr Keir was for about eight years a member of the Charlton school committee, and served for a similar period on the Waimumu Road Board, of which he was chairman for four years. He was a member of the committee of the Gore Agricultural and Pastoral Society for ten years, and its vice-president for three years, and was for a number of years a director of the Mataura Dairy Factor. Mr Keir, whose wedding was the first in the Halkett church, was married, in 1877, to a daughter of the late Mr John Anderson, of Halkett, but his wife died in 1881, leaving one son and one daughter.