John James Smith

Also known as: Jack Smith
Born: 1871 — Tungkillo, South Australia
Died: 6 December 1943 (aged 72) — Nyngan, New South Wales
Buried: Nyngan General Cemetery, NSW (Methodist portion)
Spouse: Idona Caston Murray (1874–1964) — m. c.1900

Photo

John James Smith and his cousin, Lillian May Telfer — the couple plate that follows Esther Telfer Smith's portrait on the same page of the family book. John James ("Jack"), the fourth child of John Smith and Esther Jane Telfer, is seated in a dark suit, waistcoat and tie with a watch chain; his cousin Lillian May Telfer stands behind at left in an ornate dark dress with puffed sleeves, a multi-strand pearl necklace and a jewelled belt, with a small draped table holding flowers between them. The printed plate caption reads "John James Smith and his cousin, Lillian May Telfer". (From the Borders to the Bush, 1989 — plate; photograph supplied by Mark Telfer)

Family

Life Summary

John James ("Jack") Smith was born in 1871 at Tungkillo, South Australia, the fourth child of John Smith and Esther Jane Telfer. He was one of the two brothers whose ride west took the family to Nyngan, New South Wales — home of "Brooklands", Duck Creek. He married Idona Caston Murray. He died on 6 December 1943, aged 72, and is buried in the Methodist portion of Nyngan General Cemetery.

Timeline

Family Stories

🖊️ Anecdote — as told in From the Borders to the Bush (book pp. 39–40): Now here's the yarn that set the whole family on the road to Nyngan. Two of Esther's lads — Jack, the elder, barely seventeen, and Frank, a fifteen-year-old stripling — took it into their heads one day that they ought to go and see what the country was like out past the railway line, out beyond where anyone they knew had ever settled. So they climbed onto their pushbikes down at Natimuk and set off. Six hundred miles of dirt track and corrugation and gum-leaf shade and dust in their teeth, two boys pedalling into the bush with nothing much more than grit. When they got out there and saw the open runs and the room to breathe, well, they came home buzzing — you'd have thought they'd found a fortune. Their mother caught the fire from them straight away, and it was those two boys on their bikes who convinced the family to pull up stakes and head out west to Nyngan.

(Anecdote only — family colour, told as the elders tell it. Does not establish any relationship, date or place.)

Sources

• Source: Australian Cemeteries Index — Nyngan Cemetery inscription index, `austcemindex.com/?cemetery=Nyngan` — "Smith John James | 1871? | 6 Dec 1943 | 72 | Nyngan NSW Mth" — accessed 17 Sep 2026
• Source: From the Borders to the Bush (Donald Telfer, 1989), pp.39–40 — Jack Smith, fourth child of John Smith and Esther Jane Telfer, of "Brooklands", Duck Creek, Nyngan — accessed 17 Sep 2026
• Source: A Telfer Family Tree (Supplement to From the Borders to the Bush, 2008) — accessed 17 Sep 2026