Baker, John

BAKER, John (1859-?) was born at Bristol, Gloucestershire, son of William Baker, a head coke burner, and Rebecca Osborne. At Cardiff In 1878, he was apprenticed in the Merchant Navy, but the indenture was cancelled. When he married Mary Ann Turner in 1879, his occupation was given as labourer. A daughter, also Mary Ann, was born in 1880 but the marriage failed and he departed from Bristol in February 1882 leaving his daughter in the care of his mother. By 1884, he was at Sydney when she last heard from him and was still caring for the child in 1889. In that year, Baker, claiming to have been a draftsman in the Department of Public Works, India; and the Imperial War Office, Aldershot, England, was working for lithographic firms in Brisbane when he unsuccessfully sought a position with the Queensland Works Department. In 1890, he was listed as an artist at Hampstead St, East Brisbane. After working as a builder, carpenter and joiner, and during the recession of the 1890s, also as a music agent, his whereabouts are unknown.