Person

Ashby, Edwin (1861 - 1941)

Born
2 November 1861
Surrey, England
Died
8 January 1941
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Naturalist and Ornithologist

Summary

Edwin Ashby, an Adelaide estate agent, built up a large natural history collection, much of which he donated to the South Australian Museum. He became a world authority on chitons, a class of molluscs and also wrote widely on ornithology and the cultivation of Australian plants.

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Details

Born Surrey, England, 2 November 1861. Died Adelaide, 8 January 1941. Worked for his tea merchant father; visited Australia for his health 1884-87; migrated to Adelaide 1888; wattle-bark-growing 1888-89; joined a cousin's firm of land and estate agents and financiers ca 1890, later, as Saunders & Ashby, they owned and largely developed much of Eden Hills; established the property, Wittunga, in the Adelaide Hills; retired 1914; continued an independent business from his home, where he established a bird sanctuary and a nursery shrubs. Named or discovered several new birds, and a world authority on chitons, recent and fossil, discovering over twenty new taxa. Foundation member, South Australian Ornithological Association 1899; original member, Australasian Ornithologists' Union 1901; life member, British Ornithologists' Union 1915; Corresponding Fellow, American Ornithologists' Union ca 1918; president, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union 1926; sometime president, Royal Society of South Australia. The genus Ashbyia was named after him by A.J. North (q.v.), as well as thirteen forms.

Chronology

1899 -
Career position - Foundation Member, South Australian Ornithological Association
1899
Career position - President, Field Naturalists' Section, Royal Society of South Australia

Related People

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • Australian Botanists - Biographies, MS 064; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Private hands (Robertson, E.L.)

  • Edwin Ashby - Records, 1861 - 1941; Private hands (Robertson, E.L.). Details

State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana

  • Edwin Ashby - Records, 1934 - 1936, D 5080(L); State Library of South Australia, Mortlock Library of South Australiana. Details

Published resources

Book Sections

  • Robertson, Enid, 'Ashby, Edwin (1861-1941), estate agent and naturalist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 7: 1891 - 1939 A-Ch, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), pp. 108-109. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070111b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

  • Macphail, M. K.; and Zeidler, W., 'Additional type shells from Tasmania in the South Australian Museum', The Tasmanian naturalist, 52 (1978), 2-6. Details

Resources

See also

  • Aroney, M. J.; Buckingham, A. D., 'Raymond James Wood Le Fèvre 1905-1986', Historical Records of Australian Science, 7 (3) (1988), 273-297. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9880730273. Details
  • Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: a Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001), 492 pp. Details

McCarthy, G.J. & Rosanne Walker

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 27 August 2019

EOAS ID: biogs/P000986b.htm

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