(Material researched & presented by Barbara Armstrong)

In the February 1880 edition of The Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton's newspaper), William Jager commenced advertising his services as a homœopathist. He advertised that he could be consulted at his residence, Alma Street, next cottage to New English Church (Bartholemew's Cottages) from 9 to 12 am, and 3 to 6 pm. "All animals subjected to homœopathic treatment, up to 7 am."

In the 1883 edition of Pugh’s Almanac & Queensland Directory he was listed as one of two homœopathic practitioners.

He continued to advertise as a homœopathist until 1884. It appears that he died in late 1884, as records of probate appeared in the newspaper in November of that year.

There is an interesting report regarding William Jager in The Morning Bulletin of 1926, which reminisced about pioneering activities in Queensland, under the heading "60 years in Queensland".

It is probably in 1862 that Macdonald Peterson and William Jager started a butchering business at the corner of East and Fitzroy Streets. .............. Peterson eventually became one of the members of the Rockhampton Legislative Assembly, and became a solicitor in Brisbane. William Jager, who suffered from ill-health for a long period, which made him somewhat irrascible, subsequently owned a butcher's shop where the Cornstalk Hotel had been, now the Tivoli Theatre. Jager will be remembered by many from the fact that he had made a study of homœopathy, and is credited with having brought about many remarkable cures. He was the first homœopathist in Rockhampton , and he died at an advanced age.

© Barbara Armstrong