Edwards, Edward

Edwards, Edward, 1812–86, English library pioneer. As assistant from 1839 in the British Museum, he helped Sir Anthony Panizzi draw up the rules for the catalog. Edwards collected library statistics and advised William Ewart on the free-library legislation for Great Britain (1850). He was first librarian of the Manchester Free Library from 1850 to 1858. Edwards wrote a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh (1865), Memoirs of Libraries (1859), and Lives of the Founders of the British Museum (1870).

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