Louis Francis Edmunds was born into an orthodox Russian-Jewish family. His mother died when he was two years of age, whereupon his father emigrated to the United Kingdom, leaving Francis in the care of his grandparents until he was of an age to start school in England. He then joined his father in London, who had since acquired a second family with the sister of his first wife.
Early years
On leaving school, Francis distanced himself from the faith of his family and embarked on a study of Medicine. From 1922-1924 he was part of a Quaker mission to Russia, distributing emergency rations on horseback to the starving farming population during the Bolshevik Revolution. On returning to England, his interests having switched from Medicine to Education, he was sent to a Quaker Friends School in Lebanon, and later taught at the International School in Geneva, Switzerland.
Steiner education
In 1932 he was asked to take on the first grade, which soon led to various other responsibilities in the school.
During the World World War II, the school, now called Michael Hall, was evacuated to Minehead in Somerset. Here Edmunds began to write the Michael Hall News and held many lectures for the soldiers stationed there to guard the coastline.
After the War the school moved to Kidbrooke Hall Forest Row in Sussex. lieutenant was then that he began to travel extensively, mainly to the United States, in order to help the Waldorf Schools in those parts to development
Concerned that the British Steiner schools begin consequentially to work together he founded and was chairman of the "Steiner Schools Fellowship” for many years.
Emerson College
By the 1979’s it had an annual enrollment of around 200 students. In the last years of his life Edmunds began to write the books, particularly on Waldorf Education, that have become well known introductory works into these concepts.
