CARPENTER, Sir WALTER RANDOLPH (1877-1954), merchant, was born on 31 October 1877 at Singapore, Straits Settlements, son of John Bolton Carpenter and his English wife Emma Frances, née Griffin. John, a merchant, whaler and sea captain, came from New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America. Restricted by the American Civil War he had made the Straits Settlements his base and been naturalized a British subject. In 1885 he moved his family to Sydney and became a skipper for Burns, Philp & Co. In 1891, while commanding the company's Costa Rica Packet, he was arrested at Ternate in the Dutch East Indies and then involved in the long struggle for compensation.

To help the family, Walter left Forest Lodge Public School at 14 and joined the Sydney office of Burns Philp. After a year at Esperance, Western Australia, about 1896 he moved to the Thursday Island branch. There on 18 December ...

Read more at the source website

Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography