J.E. Neild graduated in medicine at University College, London, in 1848. Attracted to the prospect of gold, he migrated to Victoria in 1853 as surgeon on the Star of the East. He later moved to Melbourne where he entered the pharmaceutical business, and in 1855 he joined the general reporting staff of the newly-established Age. He also worked as a theatrical critic for My Note Book, which he edited for a time, the Examiner and the Argus, writing as 'Christopher Sly'. Neild began practising medicine in Melbourne in 1861, and became a prominent member of the Medical Society of Victoria. He was the editor of the Australian Medical Journal from 1862-1879, to which he contributed under the name 'Sinapis', and later worked as a government pathologist and lectured in forensic medicine at Melbourne University.
In 1879 Neild and several other doctors established the Victorian Branch of the British Medical Association, and he helped to establish its journal in New South Wales, the Australasian Medical Gazette. He was instrumental in founding a branch of the St John Ambulance Association in Victoria, and he was the first president of the Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, an appointment which he held until 1871.
Between 1865 and 1890 Neild, as 'Jacques' or later 'Tahite', worked as an extremely influential theatrical critic for the Australasian, and there is evidence that two of his comediettas were successfully produced on the stage. He wrote numerous articles for the Herald and its associated publications, the Melbourne Punch and the Weekly Review, and for the Victorian as 'The Grumbler'. He was a founder of the Melbourne Shakespeare Society, of which he was president in 1890.
