Edwards’s only connexion with Maidstone seems to have been through his uncle, Sir Horace Mann, whom in 1784 he succeeded as M.P. for the borough. He supported Pitt, voted for parliamentary reform, 18 Apr. 1785, and spoke occasionally in the House. On the death of his cousin, Thomas Noel, he vacated his seat at Maidstone and was returned unopposed for Rutland, where the Gainsborough estates principally lay. He was a member of the group which in May 1788 tried to form a third party independent of both Pitt and Fox. On the Regency he spoke and voted against Pitt.
In an obituary notice he is described as ‘in early life a partner in a banking house in Westminster’,1Gent. Mag. 1838, i. 657. which seems to have been Davison and Co. of Stratford Place, Oxford St.2F. G. Hilton Price, Handbook of London Bankers, 50-51.
He died 25 Feb. 1838.