Constituency : Clitheroe 1842-7 ( Tory) , Liverpool 1847-52, Oxford 1852-7 , 1857-74
Edward was a wealthy merchant's son from Liverpool. He was educated at Winchester and Oxford and became a barrister. He worked in the Colonial Office in the 1830s. He was first elected as a Tory in 1842 and quickly became a friend and confidante of Peel who appointed him Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1845. He loyally followed Peel out of the Conservative party. He lost in Liverpool in 1852 through his support for the repeal of the Navigation Acts then in Ayrshire before finding a safer seat at Oxford. He was President of the Board of Trade throughout Aberdeen's government. In 1854 he passed a Railway Act to bring some order to the railway industry. In the same year his Merchant Shipping Act consolidated the various bits of existing maritime legislation into a coherent mercantile code. Despite having 548 sections it passed through committee at a single sitting prompting a jealous remark from Russell "What great public interest have you been abandoning , Cardwell, that your bill passed so easily ?" When Palmerston replaced Aberdeen and other Peelites resigned he offered Edward the Exchequer to induce him to stay but Edward declined and followed his friends out of the government. Having voted against Palmerston on China he momentarily lost his seat in 1857 regaining it on petition He voted against Palmerston on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill then started co-operating with him against the Derby government. It was his motion of censure which secured the resignation of Lord Ellenborough although he then withdrew it on the threat of dissolution. He also bided his time on a commission on naval recruitment whose recommendations were successfully adopted.
In 1859 Palmerston appointed him Chief Secretary for Ireland. He passed an Irish Land Act which had no practical effect and he let it be known that he wasn't happy in the role.After two years he switched to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1864 he moved again to Secretary of State for the Colonies which he held till 1866. He abolished transportation and conciliated Jamaica after the Eyre incident.
Gladstone restored him to office in 1866 as Secretary of State for War, a post where he was to make his name as one of the big success stories of the epochal first Gladstone ministry. Germany's stunning victory over France in 1870 gave a fresh impetus to the need to reform the army that had been under discussion since the Crimea. Edward had already abolished flogging in the army in 1868. In 1870 he abolished bounty money for recruits and expelled known bad apples from the ranks. He withdrew troops from self-governing colonies such as Canada, a process he'd already strated as Colonial Secretary in the Palmerston and Russell governments.
Most controversially Edward abolished the system of commission and promotion by purchase in favour of meritocratic advancement. The Tories fiercely opposed this and the House of Lords rejected the original Bill until Gladstone threatened to re-introduce it without the clauses compensating current office-holders. Edward also won Palmerston's old battle in making the Commander-in-Chief ( then the queen's cousin, George Duke of Cambridge ) subject to the Secretary of State for War. He also created a larger pool of trained reservists by reducing the term of enlistments. He also introduced a system of localised regiments rather than General Service. On top of all these improvements he saved public money by reducing the departmental budget.
Edward was re-elected in 1874 but he was now in poor health and immediately ennobled as Viscount Cardwell with the Liberals' defeat ( which handed the Tories another gain in the by-election ).
Edward epitomised the Peelite ethic of hard work and rectitude in public administration. He was distinguished by great ability rather than vision.
He died in Torquay in 1886 aged 72.
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