John Passmore Edwards (24 March 1823 – 22 April 1911)[1][2] was a British journalist, newspaper owner, and philanthropist who briefly served as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament.

At age twelve, the first book he managed to purchase for himself was Newton's Opticks, and he declared that he "was just as wise at the end as I was at the beginning of reading it".

[3] He became the Manchester representative of the London Sentinel, a weekly newspaper opposed to the Corn Law, in 1844 but the paper failed within a year.

[1] His initial publishing ventures, including the widely read Public Good, were failures, bringing him to bankruptcy in 1853, but his 1862 purchase of The Building News and Engineering Journal (founded in 1854 as The Building News) led to profitability; this was followed by the twopenny weekly English Mechanic (subtitled and Mirror of Science and Art) and shareholding in the leading London newspaper The Echo,[when?]

[7] Salisbury was reduced to one MP by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 and in the 1885 general election he stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal in Rochester.

He became somewhat sceptical about the quality of professional politics and the inability of politicians to effectively represent the interests of their constituents, and his opposition to the Second Boer War lost him some popularity.

This fountain is regularly frequented by the local community and is considered a historical landmark in an area that finds itself becoming detached from its history.

Passmore Edwards was a leading Freemason, and a founder in 1906 of the Standard Chapter of Improvement, which sought to simplify and unify the incoherent rituals of the Holy Royal Arch degree.

The Epilepsy Society's main administrative office is sited at Passmore Edwards House, a Grade II listed building in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire.