He was the elder son of Henry Lascelles (1690–1753) and Mary Carter. His father split the family fortune, leaving Edwin"s younger brother Daniel as head of the business, whilst raising Edwin as a lord of the manor over their English estates.
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and on a European Grand Tour.
He fought against the Jacobites (1745), and entered Parliament as Member of Parliament for Scarborough from 1744 to 1754. By 1748 Edwin was installed as Lord of the Manor of Harewood and he built Harewood House from 1759 to 1771. On Daniel"s death childless in 1784 and their only other sibling Henry"s death two years later, Edwin was left in sole charge of the fortune, to which he added 22 working plantations, more than 27,000 acres (110 km2) of West Indian property and 2,947 slaves surrendered to planters" creditors as the planters defaulted on debts because of the American War Of Independence, worth £293,000 (about £283 million today).
A great many planters depended on their sale of sugar and molasses to the American colonies for income.
He was made Baron Harewood, of Harewood in the County of York on 9 July 1790, but died childless and the title became extinct.
