Edwin James Semmens, MBE was the Principal of the Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) at Creswick, Victoria, Australia for 23 years from 1928 to 1951, as well as local historian and prominent community leader.

Edwin was born on 20 January 1886 at the small Gippsland township of Toongabbie in eastern Victoria, as the eldest of nine children of Josiah Semmens, and his wife Agnes, née Veitch.

Semmens also enjoyed strong support from the Chairman of the Forests Commission, Alfred Vernon Galbraith after the acrimonious split between Victoria and the Australian Forestry School in Canberra in 1930.

Two students, James Hamlin Willis, and Richard Bond[4] became outstanding botanists, while many others established prominent careers within the National Parks Service, Fisheries and Wildlife, Soil Conservation Authority, teaching at tertiary institutions or the private forestry sector.

accumulated a large and valuable collection of plant specimens and personal sketches[6] for the expanding school herbarium and was elected a Fellow honoris causa of the prestigious Linnean Society of London (FLS) in 1935 for his outstanding work.