Cirrus@Austlit

Alfred Midgley spent most of his youth in Leeds with the exception of three years at a village boarding school. He has written about those years in the poem, 'Their Native Village'. After leaving school he served an apprenticeship with an engineering firm. Midgley journeyed to Australia on the ship Storm King, arriving in Brisbane in January 1870. In the 1870s he served as a minister with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Ipswich, Toowoomba and Brisbane. After leaving the ministry he worked in a produce business in Brisbane, publishing The Queensland Illustrated Guide for the Use of Farmers, Fruit-growers, Vignerons and Others with a Map in 1888.

Midgley entered politics and in 1883 was elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly as MLA for Fassifern. He was the father of Zoe O'Leary (q.v.), who has written his biography: The Little Byron : The Life of Alfred Midgley, Queensland Poet, Parliamentarian and Methodist Pioneer (1849-1930). The title 'Little Byron' was conferred upon Midgley by his parliamentary colleagues in recognition of his oratorical abilities.