Austin was educated at Shebbear College and at Aberdeen University, where he qualified M.B. in 1915. As an ex-Cadet of the Officer’s Training Corps, he obtained the commission of Lieutenant [on probation] within the R.A.M.C. on 1st April 1915, which was soon after he qualified. He entered the war in France on 14th June 1915. He was awarded the Military Cross during the Battle of the Somme - “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during operations. He showed great coolness during the assault, and for thirty hours afterwards under intense shell and machine gun fire. He tended the wounded in the open the whole time, his aid post being full, and, after dark, went out and searched the wood under heavy shell fire”. He gained promotion to Captain early 1917. Austin was offered a Staff appointment but refused stating that his duty was to remain with his Battalion. He was killed on the Bapaume-Cambrai Road. An officer wrote to Austin’s family: “I am sure his great friend and colonel will be writing to you how broken-hearted we and all of the hundred of your boy’s beloved ‘Q.V.R’s’ are feeling. You know how your son loved them, and how he would dare all for them, and they just worshipped him. No doctor was like their doctor, and how they cheered when only a few short weeks ago he beat all comers on his fine charger and got first prize. Professionally able as well, he was the beau-ideal of a brave regimental surgeon.” His Colonel then wrote: “He deserved a decoration every time he went into action. Only the day before he was killed he went out into ‘No Man’s Land’ and carried back a wounded airman into our lines. But I could fill pages with his brave deeds. He was beloved by the whole division, and his place can never be filled in the battalion.” Austin was the son of Dr Albert Bleckly and Mary (daughter of John Litchfield) Clarke of Woodlands, Topsham, Devon. He was a descendant of Sir Thomas Picton, who was killed at Waterloo, and his cousins, Col Ansell and Lt Cyril Clarke, were killed earlier in the war.