Edwards, Edward (1812–1886)

English librarian and author. He was instrumental in founding the first major public library in Britain, which opened in Manchester in 1852.

Edwards began his career at the British Museum in 1839, cataloguing their extensive collection of Civil War tracts. As chief librarian at Manchester, he wrote his major work Memoirs of Libraries, which was published in 1859. His other writings include a biography of Sir Walter Raleigh, 1868, and various contributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.