William Darwen was born in Bowen, North Queensland and educated at the local state school. At age 15 he worked as an apprentice at The Port Denison Times before undertaking a range of jobs including road building, butchery, wharf labouring, fence building and woodcutting. Darwen returned to the newspaper trade as a printer at The Bowen Advocate but was retrenched after it merged with The Port Denison Times in 1900.
In June 1903 Darwen bought The Bowen Record from the widow of the former proprietor, Michael Keane. Ten days later he launched The Bowen Independent in its place while still running a bicycle agency and holding three secretaryships. Darwen kept the costs of the newspaper low by using his family members for inexpensive labour. In addition to his newspaper duties he served as alderman in Bowen for 27 years and as mayor in 1911, 1917 and 1918.
Source: Rod Kirkpatrick. Sworn to No Master. Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1984.
