Austin Burton Edwards
Australian mineralogist and petrologist, 1934-1960 at CSIRO

Austin Burton Edwards (15 August 1909 – 8 October 1960) was an Australian geologist, winner of the Clarke Medal in 1960.
Family
The son of William Burton Edwards, the Commissioner of the Federal Public Service, and his second wife, Mabel Edwards, née Mueller, Austin Burton Edwards was born in Caulfield on 15 August 1909.
He married Eileen Mary McDonnell, in Adelaide, on 22 April 1935. They had four children.
Caulfield Grammar School
He was educated at Caulfield Grammar School from 1916 to 1927—representing the school in both swimming and athletics over a number of years—where he was both School Captain and Dux of School in 1926.
He was a member of the Caulfield Grammar School Council for 12 years, from 1949 until his death in 1960.
Sportsman
Football
On 17 April 1931 he was awarded a "half-blue" for football by the University of Melbourne.
In June 1931, while playing with Old Caulfield Grammarians in C-Section of the Metropolitan Amateur Football Association, he was chosen (as a back-pocket resting ruckman), to play for a Combined C-Section team, against a Combined B-Section team as a curtain raiser to the inter-State amateur football match between Victoria and South Australia, on the MCG. He was one of the best on the ground.
Athletics
While studying at the Royal College of Science he was awarded "colours" in athletics.
Tertiary education
Melbourne University
He studied at the University of Melbourne, graduating Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) with First-Class Honours in Geology on 12 April 1930.
The public source identifies “Austin Burton Edwards” as australian mineralogist and petrologist, 1934-1960 at CSIRO. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Austin, Burton and Edwards.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4823008. VIAF identifies the subject as 61939445. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1960, 1935 and 1916.
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This entry incorporates text from “Austin Burton Edwards” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.