Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Edwardes, Sir Herbert Benjamin" to "Ehrenbreitstein" Volume 9, Slice 1

Born in 1819 to a Shropshire rector, he entered the East India Company’s service as a young cadet and quickly distinguished himself in the Bengal Fusiliers. Fluent in Hindustani, Hindi and Persian, his early letters earned notice in the Delhi Gazette, and he soon found himself at the side of Sir Hugh Gough during the first Sikh War, where he was seriously wounded at Mudki before fighting at Sobraon. His competence led to appointments as aide‑de‑camp and later as assistant to Sir Henry Lawrence, the resident at Lahore, where he helped quell a religious disturbance and pursued a local insurgent to Jammu.

Edwardes’s reputation grew on the volatile Waziri frontier, where he led an expedition to Bannu and pacified the valley without a single shot, crafting lasting fiscal arrangements for the region. In the aftermath of the Multan uprising he commanded a small force, checked a superior Sikh army at Kinyeri, and endured the loss of his right hand to a stray pistol explosion—events that cemented his standing as a resourceful soldier‑statesman in British India.