Leigh Edmonds

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.

In 2015, publication began on Edmonds' three volume A History of Civil Aviation in Australia which charts aviation in Australia from 1900 to 2000.

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.

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.

Academia

He has written books about Western Australia and national Australian topics.

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.

Publications