Bryan Edwards

Bryan Edwards was a wealthy merchant and plantation owner on Jamaica also remembered as a prominent historian on the West Indies.

Following his father’s death Edwards was raised by his uncle, Zachary Bayly, a wealthy merchant in Jamaica. He joined his uncle in Jamaica around 1759 and eventually inherited all his possessions. Few years later, in 1773, he became heir to the much larger estate of Mr Hume, also of Jamaica. He rose to prominence in Jamaica and became a leading member of the colonial assembly. Around that time he made a decision to return to England. Edwards established himself as a West India merchant and sought to actively engage in politics. In 1796 he became MP for Grampound, a notoriously corrupt Cornish borough. He held that seat until his death in 1800 at Southampton.

Edwards was also a well-known historian on the West Indies. He wrote “Thoughts on the late Proceedings of Government respecting the Trade of the West India Islands with the United States of America” (1784), in which he attacked the government’s restrictions upon trade with the United States. In 1793 he published the “History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies” in two volumes, and “Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St Domingo” in 1797. These two titles were later republished in three volumes as the History of the British Colonies in the West Indies, and translated into German, French and Spanish.