Nikolaos E. Voyantzis

This biography is part of a collection from "Life in Australia" :


Mr. Nikolaos E. Voyantzis hails from Sitia, on the heroic island of Crete, born there in 1857. His father was a seaman. Distinguished for his love of his country, he was sent twice as representative of Sitia to Constantinople. Mr. N. Voyantzis, who has an encyclopedic knowledge, originally served his country as a teacher, before devoting himself to the profession of his father, that of seaman.

He made repeated visits to Australia, serving on various oceangoing steamships, when he decided in 1888 to settle permanently in Sydney. He was initially employed in various government servicesand was thereafter engaged in various businesses.

From 1897 onwards, he was the confidential representative of the very wealthy Greek Mr. I . Kominos and lived in Bohnock, on the Manning River. Mr. Voyantzis is an extremely charming and honest personality. He protects and advises both Greeks and almost all of the Australians in the area. In return, he rightly enjoys their complete love and confidence. His life is such as would be envied by the richest of his contemporaries in Greece. He has at his disposal three steamships, Ariadni, Pandora and Salamis, on which the Greek flag always flies.


This biography is part of a collection from "Life in Australia" published in 1916 by John Comino. It is an important book as it was one of the first Greek books published in Australia for the Greeks back in the homeland. If they needed any more convincing of the golden opportunities awaiting them in Australia, it probably helped create interest amongst young Kytherians and other Greeks. Each of the men portrayed in the book paid for the honour, which, considering their reputation for thriftiness, must have made the decision a hard one for many a Kytherian.

The Kythera-Family.net team, with the support of the Nicolaus Aroney Trust and other generous sponsors, has undertaken to transcribe the entire book for the website and to translate it into English for the non-greek-speaking diaspora community. We hope to also produce a printed version of the translation of Life in Australia sometime in 2005.

For valuable information about the historical background of the publication of Life in Australia, please read the entry by Hugh Gilchrist I ZOI EN AFSTRALLIA in the History, General History section.