Edwin Sherbon Hills

Edwin Sherbon Hills was an Australian geologist and physiographer, born in 1906 and raised in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton. He studied at the University of Melbourne, then at the Royal College of Science in London on an 1851 Exhibition scholarship, working on fossil fishes and the petrology of igneous rocks. Returning to Melbourne in 1932, he rose from lecturer to professor and head of the geology department in 1944, held the chair until 1971, and served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor from 1962. His research covered Australian fossil fishes, physiography, hydrology, petrology, mineralogy and economic geology, and his textbooks, notably Outlines of Structural Geology and The Physiography of Victoria, went through many editions. He was founding chair of the Geological Society of Australia in 1951, received the Bigsby Medal that year, and was elected to the Royal Society in 1954 and as a founding fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.