Edward Myers was born in London, the son of a magistrate. He contracted a serious illness as a child which led to him being permanently crippled. Myers spent seven years in France, returned to London, and then travelled to South America, New York and San Francisco before arriving in Australia. Myers began his Australian life in Sydney, then Melbourne and, later still, in North Queensland where he worked as a medical practitioner, opened the first hospital in Cairns and became secretary of the Cairns Progress Association.
Myers ran the Cairns Advertiser from shortly after its inception until 1881. On 24 September 1881, Myers closed the Cairns plant and shifted it to Herberton where he resumed newspaper publishing in the form of the Herberton Advertiser. Myers was again involved with a Cairns newspaper when, in 1885, he launched The Cairns Chronicle with William Doyle Hobson (q.v.) and A. J. Draper.
In Herberton, Myers ‘became a magistrate of the district and secretary and treasurer of the School of Arts [and] doctor to the hospital'. According to his obituary in the Australian Town and Country Journal, Myers suffered from depression which necessitated his "moving on" with his wife and family’. He re-settled in Charters Towers for the remainder of his life.
Myers died at his residence in Gill Street, Charters Towers on 13 March 1895. (Some sources give his date of death as 14 March, but family notices say 13 March.)
Major source (and source of quote): 'Mr E. Myers.' Australian Town and Country Journal (27 April 1895): 29. Also, Rod Kirkpatrick, Sworn to No Master (1984).
Sighted: 11/09/2013
