Meaden was a businessman, temperance worker and poet. He was the son of a London publisher and bookseller, educated at St. John's College, Sussex. The Australian Dictionary of Biography asserts Meaden was born on 14 July 1840; John Vale's 'Biographical Sketch' in The Poetical Works of J. W. Meaden (1899) states the 12 August 1840. In 1854 he travelled to Brazil and then on to Melbourne. Meaden established a business in Collingwood and, in 1863, married Marianne Bullock. He owned property in Gippsland. Meaden's leisure hours were devoted to temperance, Sunday School, church work and his literary pursuits. He wrote in local newspapers on current issues of the day.
Meaden wrote verse for the press and won literary prizes between 1879 and 1880. He was in demand as a public speaker. Meaden won a prize for the best poem to be spoken as a prologue to the opening ceremony at the Geelong Industrial and Juvenile Exhibition in 1879 and a gold medal for the best essay ' On the Benefits of Total Abstinence from Intoxicating Liquors'. He was also awarded in 1886 a prize of one hundred pounds for an essay on the 'Commercial History of Australasia' and fifty pounds for an essay on ' Beneficial Influences of a Protectionist Policy Upon the Colony of Victoria, Having Special Regard to Her Industries'. Meaden also won smaller amounts for essays on the question of Sabbath observance and other subjects. He was a founder of the Victorian Alliance, a temperance organisation, and became corresponding secretary in 1888. Meaden established and edited its journal, the Alliance.
(Source: A Biographical Register, 1788-1939 : Notes From the Name Index of the Australian Dictionary of Biography (1987) compiled and edited by H.J. Gibbney and Ann G. Smith; ' Biographical Sketch' by John Vale in The Poetical Works of J. W. Meaden (1899): 9-31.)
