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Ernest Giles (1835-1897), explorer, was born on 20 July 1835 at Bristol, England, son of William Giles, merchant, and his wife Jane Elizabeth, née Powell. Educated at Christ's Hospital (where he was admitted as William Ernest Powell Giles) he followed his parents to Adelaide in 1850. He moved to Victoria in 1852, tried his luck on the goldfields without success and became a post office clerk in Melbourne. By 1861 he was in western New South Wales where until 1865 he engaged in several expeditions aimed at assessing the pastoral country beyond the Darling River. These journeys gave him both the experience and the taste for further exploration.

In 1872 Giles was chosen to lead a small expedition organized by Dr Mueller to investigate parts of central Australia west of the new overland telegraph line. From Charlotte Waters the party followed the Finke valley to the Missionaries' Plain south of the MacDonnell Ranges but found its way blocked to the west by lack of water and to the south by the salt-pans of Lake Amadeus which Giles named.