 He was also a pioneer conservationist as, in 1831, he instructed the shepherds on Hermaness on Unst to ensure the safety of the tiny population of breeding great skuas.Edmondston studied medicine at Edinburgh and became the island doctor on Unst, living at Halligarth, where he established a plantation in the late 1830s (trees are scarce in the islands).His children included Thomas Edmondston the botanist and Jessie Saxby, an author and wife of the ornithologist Henry Saxby.