Person

Ashby, Edwin (1861 - 1941)

Born
2 November 1861
Capel, 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 in 1932. He became a world authority on recent and fossil chitons, a class of molluscs, discovering over 20 new taxa. His other absorbing interests included birds and the cultivation of Australian plants, on both of which he wrote extensively. Ashby worked for his father, a tea merchant, before visiting Australia for his health in 1884-7, ultimately migrating to South Australia in 1888. Initially he engaged in the wattle-bark industry, before joined a cousin's firm of land and estate agents and financiers c.1890: the firm was later named Saunders and Ashby. The firm owned and largely developed much of Eden Hills. Retiring in 1914 to his property, Wittunga, in the Adelaide Hills, Ashby continued an independent business from his home, and established a bird sanctuary and a nursery for growing Australian native shrubs. (After being donated to the Adeelaide Botanic Gardens in 1965, Wittunga ultimately became the Wittunga Botanic Garden.) Ashby was a prominent member of local naturalists' societies, holding office as President in several. The bird genus Ashbyia was named in his honour.

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Details

Chronology

1899 -
Career position - Foundation Member, South Australian Ornithological Association
1899
Career position - President, Field Naturalists' Section, Royal Society of South Australia
1900 - 1919
Career position - Member of Council, Royal Society of South Australia
1901 - 1910
Career position - Foundation member, Australasian Ornithologists' Union
1910 - 1941
Career position - Member, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union
1914
Life event - Retired
1915 - 1941
Award - Life Member, British Ornithologists' Union
c. 1918
Career position - Corresponding Fellow, American Ornithologists' Union
1919 - 1921
Career position - Vice-President, Royal Society of South Australia
1925 - 1926
Career position - President, Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

Related Corporate Bodies

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. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ashby-edwin-5066. Details

Journal Articles

  • Anon, 'Edwin Ashby, 1861 - 1941', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 65 (1) (1941), 1-2. Details
  • Ashby, E., 'The regional distribution of Australian chitons (Polyplacophora)', Report of 17th meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (1925), 366-93. Details
  • Ashby, Edwin, 'Notes on, and additions to, the chitons fauna of north-west Tasmania, together with a brief review of the genus Stenochiton', Papers and proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania (1926), 92-117. Details
  • Ashby, Edwin, 'Fossil chitons from Mornington, Victoria', Proceeding of the Linnean Society of London, 151 (3) (1939), 186-9, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8312.1939.tb00230.x. Details
  • Condon, H. T., 'Obituary and bibliography of Edwin Ashby', Emu, 40 (5) (1941), 409-13, https://doi.org/10.1071/MU940409. Details
  • Macphail, M. K.; and Zeidler, W., 'Additional type shells from Tasmania in the South Australian Museum', The Tasmanian naturalist, 52 (1978), 2-6. Details
  • Winkworth, R., ' Edwin Ashby, 1861-1942', Journal of molluscan studies, 25 (1) (1942), 1-2. 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
  • Fagg, Murray, 'Ashby, Edwin (1861 - 1941)', Australian Plant Collectors and Illustrators, Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria (CHAH), 2010, https://anbg.gov.au/biography/ashby-edwin.html. Details
  • Iredale, Tom; and Hull, A. F. Bassett, 'Monograph of the Australian Loricates (Phylum Mollusca - Order Loricata), IX: appendix C, biography and bibliography', Australian zoologist, 4 (1927), 339-59. 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: 10 March 2026

EOAS ID: biogs/P000986b.htm

This Edition: 2026 February - 1926 Centenaries
Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - Late summer: late January to late March - season of eels
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