Edward Edwards (23 November 1803 – 13 August 1879) was a Welsh marine zoologist. Edwards was born on 23 November 1803, at

Corwen Corwen is a town and community in the county of Denbighshire in Wales. Historically, Corwen is part of the county of Merionethshire. Corwen stands on the banks of the River Dee beneath the Berwyn mountains. The town is situated west of Llango ...

, Merionethshire, where he received his education. He started in life as a draper at Bangor, Carnarvonshire, which business he carried on until 1839, when he retired from it. In the following year he established a foundry and ironworks at

Menai Bridge Menai Bridge ( cy, Porthaethwy; usually referred to colloquially as Y Borth) is a town and community on the Isle of Anglesey in north-west Wales. It overlooks the Menai Strait and lies by the Menai Suspension Bridge, built in 1826 by Thomas T ...

, which he appears to have carried on for several years with much success. In 1864, being interested in observing the forms of marine life in the waters of the

Menai Strait The Menai Strait ( cy, Afon Menai, the "river Menai") is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales. It varies in width from from Fort Belan to Abermenai Point to from ...

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. By an imitation of the natural conditions under which the fishes flourished, he succeeded in introducing such improvements in the construction of aquaria as enabled him to preserve the fish for an almost unlimited period without change of water. His most notable improvement was his 'dark-water chamber slope-back tank,' the result of a close study of the

rock pool A tide pool or rock pool is a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky intertidal shore. Many of these pools exist as separate bodies of water only at low tide. Many tide pool habitats are home to especially adaptable animals that ...

s, with their fissures and chasms, in the rocks on the shores of the Menai Strait. 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.

References

;Attribution: 1803 births 1879 deaths Welsh zoologists Marine zoologists 19th-century Welsh people People from Merionethshire British marine biologists British ichthyologists {{UK-zoologist-stub