Colonel Edward William Purvis (July 4, 1857 – August 16, 1888) was a British army officer and settler of the Kingdom of Hawaii who served as Vice-Chamberlain during the reign of King Kalākaua.

According to popular legend, he was an expert player of the Portuguese machete or cavaquinho and was believed to be the inspiration for the name of the Hawaiian ukulele.

His paternal grandfather, William Purvis, who worked as a trader and ship captain, had settled in the Dutch East Indies in the 1810s while it was still part of the British Empire.

In 1882 he served as acting chamberlain during Judd's trip to Europe and was appointed as a member of the King's Staff with the rank of colonel on December 23, 1884.

[5] He was alleged to be the author or co-author, along with Alatau T. Atkinson, of The Grand Duke of Gynbergdrinkenstein and the Gynberg Ballad, two anonymous political satires that parodied the corruption of the Hawaiian court and mocked Kalākaua, Gibson, and other people in their inner circle.

According to Ralph Simpson Kuykendall, these were "a satirical take-off on various features and incidents of the Kalakaua–Gibson regime" used "to convince the public that the administration of the kingdom was not only corrupt and unworthy of trust, but also ridiculous".

[5] These works and other factors including the Aki opium scandal and the failed attempt to form a Polynesian Confederacy contributed to the demise of the Gibson administration and the passage of the Bayonet Constitution of 1887, which severely limited the power of the king.