SMITH, Sir JAMES JOHN JOYNTON (1858-1943), hotelier and racecourse and newspaper owner, was born on 4 October 1858 at Bishopsgate, London, eldest of twelve children of James Smith, master brass finisher, later gasfitter and ironmonger, and his wife Jane, née Ware. Baptized James John, he had a London School Board education, at 12 worked for a year in his father's shop, then was a pawnbroker's rouseabout and stationer's assistant before signing on, under an assumed name, as cabin-boy on a steamer to Naples, Italy. He worked in Peninsular & Oriental liners and was third cook in the Christian McAusland which reached Port Chalmers, New Zealand, in October 1874.

After working in hotels and as steward with a coastal line Smith prospered as a hotel licensee in Wellington. He married Ellen McKenzie, illiterate daughter of a farmer, at Auckland on 20 April 1882. In 1886 he went alone to ...

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Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography