Edward Edwards (Royal Navy officer) facts for kids

Admiral Edward Edwards (born around 1728 – died April 13, 1815) was a British naval officer. He is most famous for being the captain of HMS Pandora. This ship was sent by the British Navy to find the sailors who had mutinied on the famous ship HMS Bounty.

Biography

Early Life and Naval Career

Edward Edwards was born in Water Newton, a village near Peterborough, England, around 1728. He was one of six children. He never married.

Edwards likely started his naval career very young, possibly around age 10. By 1759, when he was 17, he became a lieutenant. To reach this rank, he would have needed at least six years of experience at sea.

Before commanding the Pandora, Edwards served on several other ships, including:

• HMS Nassau (a 64-gun ship)
• HMS Lowestoffe (a 32-gun ship)
• HMS Carcass (an 8-gun bomb vessel), which he commanded from 1778 to 1780.
• HMS Hornet (a 14-gun sloop), which he also commanded.
• HMS Narcissus (a 20-gun ship), which he commanded from 1781 to 1784.

The Pandora and the Bounty Mutiny

After a break from active duty, Edwards was given command of the frigate HMS Pandora on August 6, 1790. His new orders were to sail to the South Pacific. His mission was to find the sailors who had mutinied on the HMS Bounty.

HMS Pandora sinking on August 29, 1791. This is an etching from 1831 by Robert Batty, based on a sketch by Heywood.

Edwards sailed the Pandora in May 1791. He searched for the mutineers and their ship, the Bounty, among the many islands of the South Pacific. He found fourteen men who had been on the Bounty. Ten of these were mutineers, and four were loyal sailors who could not fit on the Bounty's crowded lifeboat.

Ironically, the Pandora sailed near the Pitcairn Islands but did not land there. If Edwards had checked his maps more closely, he might have found the remaining mutineers hiding on Pitcairn Island.

Shipwreck and Court-Martial

On August 29, 1791, during the journey home, the Pandora hit the Great Barrier Reef and sank. Four of the captured mutineers and 31 of the Pandora's crew died in the shipwreck.

The survivors, including Edwards, six mutineers, and four loyalists, then had a very difficult journey in open boats. They sailed from the wreck to Timor and then to Batavia (now Jakarta). Only 78 of the Pandora's original 134 crew members eventually made it back to England.

When Edwards returned to England, he faced a court-martial on September 17, 1792. This was a naval trial to investigate the loss of the Pandora. Edwards and his officers stated that the ship was lost due to events beyond their control. The court found Captain Edwards and his officers innocent.

After the trial, Edwards worked as a recruiting officer for a few years. He was later promoted to vice-admiral in 1809. He eventually became Admiral of the White, which was a very senior rank in the Royal Navy.

Edwards' Reputation

Edwards' actions on the Pandora were sometimes seen as harsh, especially towards the captured mutineers. He kept them locked up in a special cell, even though some of them were later found to be innocent. This cell was sometimes called "Pandora's Box."

People accused Edwards of being uncaring towards the prisoners. For example, he reportedly refused to let them use an old sail for shade, causing them to get sunburned. He also treated all the captives as if they were guilty mutineers.

During the shipwreck, Edwards was criticized for keeping the prisoners locked in their cell even as the ship was sinking. Some prisoners were only saved because a crewman, Joseph Hodges, helped remove their chains at the last minute. However, four prisoners drowned.

Even though six captives were found guilty of mutiny, only three were executed. Two others, Peter Heywood and James Morrison, were later pardoned by the King.

The Lapérouse Expedition

Edwards' voyage also had an interesting side note. On August 13, 1791, as the Pandora passed Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands, smoke signals were seen rising from the island. Edwards, focused only on finding the mutineers, thought that mutineers would not draw attention to themselves. So, he ignored the smoke and sailed on.

Later, it was suggested that these smoke signals were likely a distress call from survivors of the Lapérouse expedition. This French exploration mission had disappeared years earlier. If Edwards had investigated, he might have solved one of the 18th century's great mysteries.

An islet on Ducie Atoll, in the Pitcairn Islands, is named after him.

The Bryant Escapees

In 1791, a small group of escaped convicts from Australia, including Mary and William Bryant and their two young children, arrived in Timor. They had made a long and difficult journey in a small boat. They pretended to be shipwreck survivors, but the Dutch authorities eventually realized they were escaped prisoners.

When Captain Edwards arrived in Timor with his shipwreck survivors and captured mutineers, he took charge of the Bryant family and the other escaped convicts. They were put in chains and given very little food. Edwards refused to provide a cabin for Mary and her children.

During the journey to Batavia (Jakarta), some of the convicts, including William Bryant and his son Emanuel, became very ill and died. Later, on the voyage from Cape Town to England, Mary's daughter Charlotte also died at sea.

Later Life

Admiral Edward Edwards died on April 13, 1815, at the age of 73. He was buried in a vault in St Remigius church in Water Newton, the village where he was born.

There is a story that Edwards retired to Cornwall and owned an inn called 'The Pandora Inn'. However, there is no proof for this story. Records show the inn was called 'The Passage House' until 1851.

According to a newspaper obituary, Edwards suffered for the rest of his life from the hardships he faced after the Pandora sank. This might be why he was never given command of a ship at sea again after his court-martial in 1792. Despite some criticisms, his niece remembered him as a "sweet old man."

Images for kids

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  HMS Pandora sinking on August 29, 1791.