The White Family of Australia

John's father or grandfather was involved in the establishment in 1821 of a private bank in Swansea called Walters Voss & Walters, with offices next to Swansea Castle. The bank was sold to the Glamorganshire Bank in 1841. The list of joint stock holders in the bank suggests that his name was also John Matthew VOSS.

While he perhaps went into banking for a time, John jnr. appears, according to the 1861 census, to have owned a tannery in Chelmsford, Essex, England. Certainly, although he referred to himself as a tanner at that time, he was more than just a worker because he was employing three house-servants then for his nine children. In the 1871 census, he is recorded as being back in Swansea so it's anyone's guess at the moment about what happened to the tannery.