Constituency : Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1910-18, Newcastle-upon-Tyne West 1918-22
Edward won back the second Newcastle seat after a 1908 by-election win for the Tories due to the intervention of an SDF candidate..
Edward was a vicar's son. He was educated at Durham School and Durham University. He became a barrister. He was Recorder of Sunderland from 1907 to 1918. He stood in the by-election.
Edward was a mild-mannered, somewhat colourless man who attracted littler attention in his early years in Parliament.
In 1917 Edward chaired a select committee to review the operation of the Military Service Acts. In May 1918, Lloyd George appointed him Chief Secretary of Ireland to oversee the introduction of military conscription there. At one point Edward supported a proposal to persuade soldiers to enlist in the French army but it was never implemented. He warned Lloyd George not to try to postpone home rule once the armistice was signed.
Edward was appointed Home Secretary in 1919 in the midst of a threatened police strike which he resolved. He was generally popular with the police. He was a liberal Home Secretary who reprieved a number of death sentences but he was unpopular for appointing a number of his colleagues from the north eastern circuit to important posts. In 1919 he chaired a Cabinet Committee on the industrial unrest. In 1922 he was attacked by "Diehard" Tories over the dismissal of the director of special intelligence Sir Basil Thompson a known hardliner over Ulster.
Edward stood down in 1922.
In 1929 Edward was appointed President of the British Board of Film Censors and was quite zealous in the role, banning over 100 films.
In 1935 Edward founded the security firm Nightwatch Services which became Securicor.
He died later that year aged 73.
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