If anyone reads through this, just to say that most of the mystery has been solved, thanks to Rootschatters help on various threads. He was in London in the 1911 census, with his Aunt Alice Maud Mary (always known as Maud), who married later that year and didn't travel to Australia. I can't find him on any passenger lists, but if the background he gave his family has some grains of truth, he probably left England in 1911 or soon after for Australia, before going to NZ, where he settled.
