EDWARDES, SIR HERBERT BENJAMIN (1819 r 868 ), English soldier-statesman in India, was born at Frodesley, Shropshire, on Nov. 12, 1819. He was nominated in 184o to a ca detship in the East India Company, and was posted (1841) ensign in the I st Bengal Fusiliers. In November 1845 Edwardes was ap pointed aide-de-camp to Sir Hugh (afterwards Viscount) Gough, then commander-in-chief in India. He served with Gough through the Sikh war, then in a civil appointment in the trans-Sutlej terri tory, and on Dec. 18 he was severely wounded at the battle of Mudki. He soon recovered, however, and fought by the side of his chief at the decisive battle of Sobraon (February i o, 1846) . He was soon afterwards appointed third assistant to the commis sioners of the trans-Sutlej territory; and in January 1847 he was named first assistant to Sir Henry Lawrence, the resident at Lahore. He took part with Lawrence in the suppression of a religious disturbance at Lahore in the spring of 1846, and assisted him in reducing, by a rapid movement to Jammu, the conspirator Imam-ud-din. In 1847 he conducted an expedition to Bannu, a district on the Waziri frontier, where the revenue had fallen into arrear. Edwardes conquered the wild tribes of the valley without firing a shot, and concluded fiscal arrangements which obviated all difficulty of collection for the future. In the spring of 1848, after the murder of van Agnew and Anderson at Multan, by order of the diwan Mulraj, Edwardes occupied Leiah on the left bank of the Indus, was joined by Colonel van Cortlandt, and, although he could not attack Multan, held the enemy at bay and gave a check at the critical moment to their projects. He won a victory over a superior Sikh force at Kinyeri (June 18). Ed wardes took part in the siege and capture (1849) of Multan under General Whish. His account of the campaign, A Year on the Punjab Frontier in 1848-1849, was written during a short period of leave in England, after which he returned to the Punjab. Law rence, whose trusted lieutenant he was, sent him (1853) to the Peshawar frontier as commissioner. He was stationed there when the Indian Mutiny broke out. It was a position of enormous diffi culty. Edwardes rose to the occasion. He effected a reconciliation with Afghanistan, and secured the neutrality of the amir and the frontier tribes during the war. So effective was his procedure for the safety of the border that he was able to raise a large force in the Punjab and send it to co-operate in the siege of Delhi. After three years rest in England (1859-62), during which he was created K.C.B. with the rank of brevet-colonel, he returned to India as commissioner of Umballa and agent for the Cis-Sutlej states. In February 1865 failing health compelled him to retire. In May 1866 he was created K.C.S.I. and early in 1868 was pro moted major-general in the East Indian Army. He died in London on Dec. 23, 1868. The life of Sir Henry Lawrence on which he was engaged was finished by Herman Merivale after his death.
See Memorials of the Life and Letters of Sir Herbert Benjamin Edwardes, by his wife (2 vols., 1886) ; T. R. E. Holmes, Four Soldiers (1889) ; J. Ruskin, Bibl. pastorum, iv. "A Knight's Faith" (1883) , passages from the life of Edwardes.