Edward Whelan was born in Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland 1824. His birthday is unknown, and much of his early life remains a mystery. After receiving a very basic education at Ballina in Scotland, in 1831 he and his mother immigrated to Halifax because his father died so the moved to Canada to start a new life. In Halifax, he went to school at St. Mary's school. And was apprentice Joseph Howe in a printing office, who became a major influence on Edward. At 18 years old, he left Howe's shop to edit the Irish Catholic newspaper the Register. In 1843 Whelan moved to Charlottetown to found his own paper called the Palladium. He married twice, first to Mary Weymouth in 1845 (divorced 1845) and then to Mary Major Hughes in 1850.

                  In 1846 Edward's political career started, he was elected to the Island assembly. Both in the assembly and in his newspaper called the Examiner, Edward’s agitated for reform; the first was about an absentee landlord system, next the political system in general. When responsible government took effect in 1851, Edward was after George Coles amongst the Liberals of fame. When he was 27 years old he became a member of the Executive Council, he was the Queen's printer until 1859, and temporarily stopped the Examiner to begin printing his new paper the Royal Gazette. Over the next ten years he was an impassioned defender of Liberal policies defending land reform and education, but the party was overthrown in 1859.

                   In the 1860’s when talk of British North American union started, the Liberal party was against the idea, along with most of Prince Edward Island. During the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, Edward announced his support of union to free the Island from being under power of the Colonial Office, solving the absentee landlord question. Later, he promoted union in the pages of the Examiner when he brought it back. He found supporters in the assembly. Also, his article in the paper about the Tenant League lost him many Irish Catholic voters.