A ROMANTIC CAREER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 81

A ROMANTIC CAREER.

COMMENCED IN DOMINION. AUCKLAND, August 30. A career that began in Auckland 21 years ago is recalled by the visit of Dr Edward E. Johnson, of I/ondon, a millionaire and scientist, who arrived from Sydney to-day on the way to Vancouver. Dr Johnson has spent his life in travel. The real beginning to his career was in 1905 when at the age of 20 he stepped aboard the sailing ship Sunlight, and went to sea. He had joined the Auckland Star’s literary staff the previous year, and had only £6 in his pocket after six months of journalism. He was associated with the Auckland Pure Milk Supply Com. pany in selling bottled milk in Auckland. He then worked for a brief period in the Puponga Coal Mine in the South Island He returned to-day as Edward E. Johnson, a millionaire. He is on his seventh voyage round the world. Since he sold bottled milk in Auckland he has become a bacteriologist, and has advocated bottled milk in other countries. At 20, with his future unplanned, Edward E. Johnson went to sea. To day he recalled the experiences of five years before the mast, and summed them up by saying: “I think it is the finest thing in the world for a young man to go to sea. It makes him well informed, and gives him a broad vision. By the time he was 25 Edward Johnson had his master’s certificate. He had been studying science continuously while at sea, and had saved up all his spare money to buy shares in the Standard Oil Company which owned the ships that took him to sea. He is now a big stockholder in the Stan dard Oil Company, and also in the Hudson Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in Canada. When lie left the sea he took up medical work in London, and finished his course in America. During the war he was with General Pershing’s army, and was field representative of the Pasteur Institute of Paris on the battle front holding rank of majo£ Dr Johnson is now bound for Mexico to inspect the Lazacualpa Hidalag coffee and rubber plantations, which cover 30,000 acres, in the State of Cheapis on the borders of Guatemala. From Mexico Dr Johnson said he would go to South America to inspect the copper mines at Cerro de Pasco in which he had a large interest. Ho was horn at Harrietville. a small town near Bright, in Victoria. He is a bachelor, a non-smoker and practically a teetotaller.