Leigh Edmonds

Leigh Edmonds
Leigh Edmonds
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	Australian National University (BA, Hons); Murdoch University (PhD); Edith Cowan University (GradCert)
Occupation(s)	Academic, author, public servant

Last updated February 14, 2024

Leigh Edmonds is an Australian historian and honorary research fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History at Federation University in Ballarat, Australia. His area of research is Australian History, in particular the history of Australian aviation. He is also a research fellow at the CAHS & Airways Museum.

Early career

Edmonds started work as a base grade Clerk in Head Office of the Department of Civil Aviation in 1965. He served in the Airworthiness, Aviation Medicine and Airports Branches for the following decade. He worked on teams writing Provisional Master Plans for aerodromes that were to be handed over to local ownership and was promoted to take charge of the Airports Division’s ministerial responsibilities in 1979.^[1]

The Airports Division was transferred from Melbourne to Canberra in 1979. While undertaking his work there, he enrolled as a part time student at the Australian National University, studying political science, sociology and history. At the end of the first year he was invited to enter the honours streams of the Political Science and History Departments and chose history. His thesis examined the origins of the Department of Civil Aviation in 1938.^[1]

He qualified with a doctorate from Murdoch University, after having been a public servant in the Australian Public Service for more than 20 years.^[2]^[3]

Academia

He has written books about Western Australia and national Australian topics.^[4]

In 1987 Edmonds resigned from the Department to follow an academic career, beginning with enrolment at Murdoch University as a PhD candidate. His research topic was the creation of a civil aviation industry in Western Australia in the interwar period. More recently he has specialized in researching and writing commissioned histories for organizations such as roads authorities, water authorities, electricity authorities, schools and the Australian Taxation Office, and currently has a dozen titles to his name.^[1]

As of 2016 Edmonds is working on a three volume concise history of Australian civil aviation in the twentieth century. It focuses on the social, economic, political and technical environments in which civil aviation developed in Australia. The first volume, which covers the period up until the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, was published in 2015. The second volume which takes the story up until the mid 1970s was published in 2017. He is presently completing a third volume, which takes the history of aviation to the year 2000.^[1]

Edmonds has also contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.^[5]

Publications

Edmonds, Leigh (1997), The vital link : a history of Main Roads Western Australia 1926-1996, University of Western Australia Press (published 1996), ISBN 978-1-876268-06-0
Edmonds, Leigh (2000), Cathedrals of power : a short history of the power-generating infrastructure in Western Australia 1912-1999, University of Western Australia Press, ISBN 978-1-876268-42-8
Edmonds, Leigh; Australian Taxation Office (2010), 100: Working for all Australians 1910-2010 : a brief history of the Australian Taxation Office (1st ed.), Australian Taxation Office, ISBN 978-0-9808067-2-4
Edmonds, Leigh (2005), Living By Water : A history of Barwon Water and its predecessors, Sands Print Group, ISBN 0-9594919-5-3

Related Research Articles

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1960.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is the statutory corporation which oversees and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the United Kingdom. Its areas of responsibility include:

The Air Commerce Act of 1926 created an Aeronautic Branch of the United States Department of Commerce. Its functions included testing and licensing of pilots, certification of aircraft and investigation of accidents.

Sir Wilmot Hudson Fysh was an Australian aviator and businessman. A founder of the Australian airline company Qantas, Fysh was born in Launceston, Tasmania. Serving in the Battle of Gallipoli and Palestine Campaign as a lieutenant of the Australian Light Horse Brigade, Fysh later became an observer and gunner to Paul McGinness in the AFC. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross during the aftermath of the war for his services to aerial warfare.

Sir Roderick Ian Eddington AO FTSE is an Australian businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reg Ansett</span> Australian businessman and aviator

Sir Reginald Myles Ansett KBE was an Australian businessman and aviator. He was best known for founding Ansett Transport Industries, which owned one of Australia's two leading domestic airlines between 1957 and 2001. He also established a number of other business enterprises including Ansett Pioneer coachlines, Ansett Freight Express, Ansair coachbuilders, Gateway Hotels, Diners Club Australia, Biro Bic Australia and the ATV-0 television station in Melbourne and TVQ-0 in Brisbane which later became part of Network Ten. ATI also bought out Avis Rent a Car and had a 49% interest in Associated Securities Limited (ASL). In late 1979, mainly due to the collapse of ASL, Ansett lost control of the company to Peter Abeles of TNT and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation who became joint managing directors.

Western Power Corporation (WPC), owned by the Government of Western Australia, was Western Australia's major electricity supplier from 1995 until 2006.

Geoffrey Curgenven Bolton was an Australian historian, academic and writer.

Nadi International Airport is the main international airport of Fiji as well as an important regional hub for the South Pacific islands, located by the coast on the Ba Province in the Western Division of the main island Viti Levu. Owned and operated by Fiji Airports Limited, it is the main hub of Fiji Airways and its domestic and regional subsidiary Fiji Link. The airport is located at Namaka, 10 km from the city of Nadi and 20 km from the city of Lautoka. In 2019, it handled 2,485,319 passengers on international and domestic flights. It handles about 97% of international visitors to Fiji, of whom 86% are tourists. Despite being Fiji's main airport, it is a considerable distance from the country's major population centre; it is located 192 kilometres (119 mi) northwest of the country's capital and largest city Suva and its own airport, Nausori International Airport.

Great Eastern Highway Bypass is a limited-access dual carriageway linking Great Eastern Highway and Roe Highway in Perth, Western Australia. Together with a section of Roe Highway, it bypasses the historical Guildford and Midland localities, through which the original, urban and slower Great Eastern Highway passes.

Canadian Airways Limited was a Canadian regional passenger and freight air service based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Duncan Road is a generally northeast-southwest former highway in the northeast of Western Australia and northwest of Northern Territory that links the Victoria Highway with Halls Creek. The road, approximately 443 kilometres (275 mi) in length, was designated as National Route 80 from its terminus at Halls Creek through to Nicholson. National Route 80 continued east into the Northern Territory along Buntine Highway, while Duncan Road snakes its way north, crossing the state border numerous times between Buntine Highway and Victoria Highway.

Macarthur Job was an Australian aviation writer and air safety consultant. He published nine books on aviation safety. He was formerly a Flying Doctor pilot and held a pilot licence until his death.

The Western Australian Party (WAP) was a short-lived Australian political party that operated in 1906. It was intended as a liberal party to protect the rights of Western Australians and to oppose the increasingly successful Labor Party, and drew its supporters from the Protectionist Party and the Anti-Socialist Party. John Forrest, a minister in Alfred Deakin's government, accepted the leadership of the party. Candidates were endorsed for all electorates in the 1906 federal election, including Forrest, but by the time of the election enthusiasm for the venture had diffused. The party elected Forrest in Swan and William Hedges in Fremantle.

Rottnest Island Airport is a small airport for light aircraft, situated about 800 m (2,600 ft) from the main settlement at Thomson Bay, Rottnest Island and 10 nautical miles northwest of Fremantle. Daily air services operate to the island. In the past these have been from Perth Airport, but in recent years have been mainly from Jandakot.

Professor Richard Higgott was born in 1949 in Nottingham, UK. He is based in the Brussels School of Governance, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel where he is Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy. From 2020 he has been a Visiting Professor in the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Siena in Italy. He is also a part time visiting fellow at the Robert Schuman Center at the European University Institute.

Maylands Airport on the Maylands Peninsula, in Maylands, Western Australia, was the main landing place of a significant number of record breaking flights in the early stages of flight in Australia. It was Perth's first official airport and was the birthplace of commercial aviation in Western Australia.

Federal Airport Act of 1946 is United States statute establishing a federal program for the development of civil aviation airports within the continental United States. The Act of Congress authorized federal grants to progressively evolve civil aviation bases. The public law mandates a national airport plan encompassing airport classifications as defined by the Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Peter Geoffrey Edwards, AM is an Australian diplomatic and military historian. Educated at the University of Western Australia and the University of Oxford, Edwards worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide before being appointed Official Historian and general editor of The Official History of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1975 in 1982. The nine-volume history was commissioned to cover Australia's involvement in the Malayan Emergency, Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation and Vietnam War. Edwards spent fourteen years at the Australian War Memorial (AWM) writing two of the volumes, while also researching, editing, and dealing with budget limitations and problems with staff turnover. Since leaving the AWM in 1996, Edwards has worked as a senior academic, scholar and historical consultant. In 2006 his book Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins won the Queensland Premier's History Book Award and the Western Australian Premier's Book Award for Non-Fiction.

The Camden Museum of Aviation is a private museum located in Harrington Park, New South Wales. Its collection includes 18 aircraft. It was founded at Camden Airport in 1967 and moved to its current location in 1976.

References

1 2 3 4 "Dr Leigh Edmonds Research Fellow at the CAHS & Airways Museum" . Retrieved 13 February 2024.
↑ Dr Leigh Edmonds, Federation University Australia, archived from the original on 21 August 2016
↑ Edmonds, Leigh; Murdoch University. School of Social Sciences (1991), Western air ways making aviation in Western Australia 1919-1941 , retrieved 2 March 2012
↑ In his notes on contributors in Rossiter, Richard; Bolton, G. C. (Geoffrey Curgenven), 1931-; Ryan, Jan (2003), Farewell Cinderella : creating arts and identity in Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, ISBN 978-1-876268-82-4 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - his range of writing is described as he has written about roads, railways, airways and radio - the latter relating to the chapter in the quoted book with Brian Shoesmith Making culture out of the air - Radio and Television pp.203-240 - see also Wireless waves as cultural glue tethering the bush to the city in Western Australia between the wars' in Media, Politics and Identity, volume 15, Studies in Western Australian History, Nedlands, Department of history, uwa, 1994, pp.92-109
↑ "Browse by author: Edmonds, Leigh - Australian Dictionary of Biography".

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[auto-1] 1 2 3 4 "Dr Leigh Edmonds Research Fellow at the CAHS & Airways Museum" . Retrieved 13 February 2024.

[2] Dr Leigh Edmonds, Federation University Australia, archived from the original on 21 August 2016

[3] Edmonds, Leigh; Murdoch University. School of Social Sciences (1991), Western air ways making aviation in Western Australia 1919-1941 , retrieved 2 March 2012

[4] In his notes on contributors in Rossiter, Richard; Bolton, G. C. (Geoffrey Curgenven), 1931-; Ryan, Jan (2003), Farewell Cinderella : creating arts and identity in Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, ISBN 978-1-876268-82-4 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - his range of writing is described as he has written about roads, railways, airways and radio - the latter relating to the chapter in the quoted book with Brian Shoesmith Making culture out of the air - Radio and Television pp.203-240 - see also Wireless waves as cultural glue tethering the bush to the city in Western Australia between the wars' in Media, Politics and Identity, volume 15, Studies in Western Australian History, Nedlands, Department of history, uwa, 1994, pp.92-109

[5] "Browse by author: Edmonds, Leigh - Australian Dictionary of Biography".

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]