Biographical information has been obtained from documents by Grahame R Pike (Usher97.doc) and Barry Craig (Usherpaa.doc).

Ernest Sterne Usher was born in 1887 in Fitzroy, Melbourne. His father was Frank Usher and his mother's maiden name was Mary Margaret Apps. They lived at 73 Moor Street, Fitzroy.
The Apps family owned Apps Funerals and their chapel was across the road from the Usher home with the mortuary situated a few buildings further along the street. Frank Usher was a director of Apps Funerals.

Ernest attended school in Fitzroy, and was, with his family, a regular at the local Parish Church of Saint Mark, George street, Fitzroy. He took diplomas as a Municipal Engineer and Geologist, at the Working Men’s College (precursor of The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). He was appointed Surveyor to the Water Supply Department and Assistant Field Geologist in the Mines Department in 1908. He was stationed in Bendigo in 1912. In 1913 he was chosen to join the Wade (Dr Arthur Wade) oil search expedition to Papua as a surveyor and assistant geologist. He arrived on the Papuan oilfield search area in January 1914.

On his arrival at Upoia Usher immediately began his photographic record. He preserved on film the living conditions, the characters, events and a view of native life and culture that has since disappeared.

The Usher collection is made up of his own photographs, some taken by Leonard Langdale Wrathall (Dr Arthur Wade's assistant) and some prints taken from the negatives of the geologist Evan Richard Stanley. Copies of some of these photographs by Stanley are also found in the Percy Money collection (AA222).
Also included are postcards of the Solomon Islands from John Watt Beattie, a photographer from Tasmania, some Papuan postcards produced by W H Cooper (Melbourne) and some postcards produced in London for the Papuan Times newspaper.

Ernest Sterne Usher died in Papua on the 23rd September 1916, not long after his return from leave. His death was the result of a boating accident while attempting to cross the Vailala River in a small canoe. The canoe was swamped by a strong current, resulting in the drowning death of Usher and one of the local natives accompanying him. Two other natives, who were also in the canoe, managed to swim to shore.