Despite being born in Scotland, William Anderson lived in Paris, where he worked as an agent. He played football for one of Paris’s top teams of the day, White Rovers Football Club, and played for Union des Sociétés Français de Sports Athletiques in the 1900 Olympic cricket match, although he was a member of the combined team made up of players from the Union Club and the Standard Athletic Club that joined with the French side for the Olympic match.
Although his side was heavily-beaten, the 41-year-old Anderson made his mark. He opened the bowling with William Attrill and proceeded to take four Great Britain wickets in the first innings, and his eight runs was the highest individual score in his team’s second innings total of just 26. Anderson’s son, also William Wallace Anderson, was killed in action in 1916, shortly after his 19th birthday.