Professor Sir Edgeworth David was born in 1858 at St. Fagan's Rectory, near Cardiff, and was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, becoming head of the school and captain of the football and boat clubs. In 1876 he was elected to the Senior Classical Scholarship at New College, Oxford, and graduated in 1880, having won further distinctions in classics and in athletics. He had included in his studies a course of geology under Professor Prestwich, and had commenced in South Wales his life-long research upon the problems of glaciation. His geological studies were continued in London under Professor Judd, at the Royal School of Mines, and in 1882 he was appointed to the Geological Survey of New South Wales, under the late Mr. C. S. Wilkinson. On his arrival in Sydney in November of that year he made an investigation of the very fossiliferous Silurian beds of Yass, and shortly afterwards commenced the study of the rich tin-bearing deep-leads and alluvium of New England, completing a large quarto memoir thereon in 1887. His duties led him to visit many pirts of the State, but attention was now devoted chiefly to the Survey of the Hunter River Coalfield, which has occupied much of his time ever since; indeed, part only of his researches thereon has yet appeared. This investigation has been of immense value both economically and scientifically. The western portion, or Maitland coalfield, the extension of which was discovered during his survey, has proved the most important coalfield in Australasia.
Geological Survey of New South Wales: New state-wide geophysical images for New South Wales