Edward Birtley, a municipal employee, made meteorological observations for the Meteorological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope at a second order meteorological station at Van Staaden's River, a railway station some 30 km west of Port Elizabeth, from 1897 to 1905. His facilities included an evaporation station, of which there were only three in the whole Cape Colony in 1897. During 1905 he transferred responsibility for the observations to Mr. T. McAdam. In 1906 he was living in Port Elizabeth.
