Myles J. Dunphy was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1891 and spent his childhood in Sydney and Kiama, NSW where he explored the South Coast countryside and developed his lifelong interest in bushwalking and nature conservation. He was a founding member of the Mountain Trails Club (1914) the Sydney Bush Walkers, and secretary of the National Parks and Primitive Areas Council from its inception in 1933 until 1965. Its major early campaigns were for the preservation of a Greater Blue Mountains National Park and the addition of Garawarra and Era to the Royal National Park. Dunphy produced maps of the areas in which he walked and for many years served as a counsellor on the Geographic Names Board of NSW. He had qualified as an architect in 1923 and taught in the schools of architecture at Sydney Technical College and University of NSW. He died in Sydney on 30 January 1985.