Like all students of his epoch Austin would have been encourage to carry a sketch book with him and practise recording his surroundings. This early work predates him winning the Prix de Rome for engraving (in 1927) when he followed in the footsteps of his better known brother, the engraver Robert Sergent Austin, (winner of the Prix de Rome in 1922). In order to establish a separate identity he insisted on calling himself Austin Frederick.