Young Edwardes was educated at a private school, and at King's College, London. Having been nominated to a cadetship in the service of the East India Company, he proceeded to India, and landed at Calcutta in January, 1841.
He was posted to an ensigncy in the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, with which very distinguished regiment he remained till November, 1845. During these years, besides mastering the duties of his profession, young Edwardes displayed literary and intellectual talents of a very high order. He passed examinations in Hindustanee, Hindee, and Persian, and attracted attention as a political writer by twenty-four letters in the Delhi Gazette, from "Brahminee Bull in India to his cousin John Bull in England." But work of a more congenial character was in store for him. He says of his early career, "I landed in India in January, 1841, without either friends or interest, and for the instruction of those who think it is of no use to study either the languages, history, or policy of British India, unless the Governor-General happens to be their grandfather, I record the fact that, at the close of 1845, I was promised the first vacancy in the Judge Advocate-General's Department of the Bengal Presidency, and have good reason to believe that I was to have had the second under the Governor-General's Agent, on the north-west frontier: but before either of those. occurred, his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, then Sir Hugh Gough, honoured me by making me an aide-de-camp on his personal staff a step to which I gratefully acknowledge that I am indebted for all the opportunities of succeeding years."
On the breaking out of the first Sikh War, Lieutenant Edwardes was appointed aide-de-camp to Sir Hugh Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, and was engaged at the battle of Moodkee, on the 8th December, 1845, when he received a ball through his thigh, which incapacitated him from taking part in the battle of Ferozeshuhur. On recovering from his wound, he rejoined Sir Hugh Gough's staff, and was by his side at the battle of Sobraon on the 10th February following. At the close of the campaign, Colonel Henry Lawrence was appointed Resident at Lahore, with plenary powers, and Edwardes became one of his assistants. The posts occupied by himself and his coadjutors required all the energy and cool judgment that distinguished that school of military diplomatists and administrators of whom Henry Lawrence was the most striking example, and which boasted-nothwithstanding Sir Charles Napier's unworthy sneer at Punjaub political officers, " as sharp