Edward Edwards was never a nationally known figure, yet he influenced the social and cultural development of Great Britain as the first propagandist for public libraries. In 1850 Edwards provided a wealth of information for the select committee studying the bill, sponsored in Parliament by his friend William Ewart, that became the first Public Libraries Act. As the first librarian of one of the first city public libraries to be established under the act, he was able to put his theories of librarianship into practice. His publications, particularly Memoirs of Libraries (1859), brought his views to the attention of the rising number of professional librarians.

Edwards was born on 14 December 1812 in Whitechapel, in the East End of London, to Anthoney Edwards, a bricklayer, and Charlotte Edwards. He was apprenticed to his father at fourteen. He received no formal education, but, with the help of the Dissenting minister Thomas Binney and...