Edward Edwards (Royal Navy officer)

:"For the US Senator, see Edward I. Edwards. For the US actor, see Edward Edwards (actor)."Admiral Edward Edwards (1742-1815) was a British naval officer best known as the captain of HMS Pandora [http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/pandora/] , which the Admiralty sent to the South Pacific in pursuit of the Bounty mutineers.

Biography

With the help of former "Bounty" midshipman Thomas Hayward Edwards succeeded in finding some of the mutineers, but the "Pandora" was wrecked on the journey home before reaching England. Edwards and his officers were subsequently court-martialed on HMS Hector and exonerated. However, Capt.Edwards never received another sea-going command. He subsequently served [http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/pandora/story/07_story1.asp] for a few years as a 'regulating' captain (recruiting officer) in Argyle and in Hull and then resigned himself to (apparently inevitable) inactivity on the half pay list. However, he was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1809 and eventually ended his career as Admiral of the White -an honorary title- the third highest ranking officer in the Royal Navy. He died at age 73 in 1815 and was buried in St Remigius Church in Water Newton, a village in Huntingdonshire near Stamford.

His reputation and character were effectively blackened by members of the Heywood family, who were unable to forgive him for what they perceived as excessively harsh treatment of their son, "Bounty" mutineer, midshipman Peter Heywood. Yet Edwards had staunch supporters among other officers who had served under his command and was also remembered by his niece as a "sweet old man", often out on a walk in the country lanes around Water Newton. According to an obituary in the "Lincoln, Stamford & Rutland Mercury" (21 April 1815), he suffered for the rest of his life from the effects of the hardships he endured during the open boat voyage to Timor after the loss of the "Pandora".

Legacy

Notwithstanding his niece's memories, Edwards' conduct [http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/pandora/information/faq.asp#3] on the "Pandora" has been regarded in many circles as every bit as cruel as popular fiction (unjustifiably) claims that William Bligh was on the "Bounty". Edwards kept his captives under close confinement, as if they had already been convicted (in spite of the fact that four of them had been identified by Bligh as being innocent; they were subsequently acquitted after the court martial in Portsmouth). Four captives and thirty-one crew members perished when the "Pandora" wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. Edwards was accused of being excessively callous when it came to the captives' well-being - for instance by refusing to let them use an old sail to prevent them from being sunburned on a sand cay, and also by collectively referring to, and treating them all as mutineers and pirates. Indeed one of his officers Lt. [http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/pandora/story/07_story2.asp John Larkan] {1746-1830} is alleged to have been "brutal" to the prisoners. Although six of the captives were found guilty of mutiny, only three of them were eventually executed; one was acquitted on a legal technicality and the remaining two -Heywood among them- were subsequently pardoned by the King.

External links

* [http://www.fatefulvoyage.com/pandora/pandoraHome.html Captain Edwards's reports] written during the voyage of the HMS Pandora to apprehend the Bounty mutineers.