He started in life as a draper at Bangor, Carnarvonshire, which business he carried on until 1839, when he retired from it.
In 1864, being interested in observing the forms of marine life in the waters of the Menai Strait he began to study the habits and characters of the fish in their native element.
He was induced to attempt an artificial arrangement for preserving the fish in health in confinement, so as to be enabled to study their habits more closely.
This improvement retarded for a long time the falling off in the taste for domestic aquaria, and the principle of Edwards's tank was most successfully adopted in all the large establishments of this country, and in many of the continental and American zoological schools.
To the pursuit of this interesting branch of natural history Edwards devoted the last years of his life, dying, at the age of seventy-five, on 13 August 1879, after an attack of paralysis.