[1] Edgar David Cartwright was born on 21 October 1926 in Stoke Newington, London.

His father, Edgar Athelstan Canynge Cartwright ran a detective agency, while his mother Lucienne Eugenie Taranson was a schoolteacher and pianist from France.

After primary school he attended Worthing High School for Boys[2] In 1944, he started his higher education at St John's College, Cambridge (BA in natural science and electronics) and in 1949, he enrolled King's College London (BSc; DSc).

He retired from Bidston in 1986, and worked for a few years at Goddard Space Flight Center, before acting as a NASA consultant in the early 1990s.

He published Tides - a Scientific History in 1999, as well as approximately eighty papers on marine science during his career.