Trevor Edson was born at Richmond in southern Tasmania in 1919 and came from a farming family with interests in apple growing and dairying. Before the Second World War he worked on his father's dairy farm. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942 at the age of 23 and served for two and a half years before being "man-powered" out of the Air Force to help maintain the family dairy farm during the wartime labour shortage.

Trevor married Olly, the girl next door, in 1945, and after visiting Flinders Island the following year, the couple decided to make it their home, attracted by the island's lifestyle and climate. He initially worked at Whitemark for John Blundstone before taking up Lot 3 on the Whitemark Estate in December 1953 with his young family. Although the original farm proved difficult to make economically viable, Trevor later transferred to another property on the Furneaux Estate, where he expanded his dairy herd to more than 100 cows on Lot 48 and became the district's largest supplier to the butter factory. He continued farming until the factory closed in 1974, after which he retired first to Whitemark and later to Bridport.