John McCarron came to Australia as a child in 1854. He started working as a 10-year-old at the printing office of A. Goulding in St Kilda, Melbourne, and commenced an apprenticeship as a printing compositor with W. Goodhugh and Co. (later Fergusson and Moore) in Flinders Lane in 1859. In April 1872 he was one of the founders of the printing and publishing company McCarron, Bird and Co. The business prospered and McCarron diversified into property, mining and farming. He was elected a member of the Melbourne City Council in 1899. An excellent raconteur and a participant in amateur theatricals, McCarron died suddenly while dancing the polka with his daughter in June 1900.
