Known as John Edwin the younger, he was the son of the English actor John Edwin. An early mention of Edwin"s name comes in a 1777 correspondence between his father and George Colman the Elder in which the elder Edwin offers the theatre manager the use of his wife and son Jack in return for a salary advancement. Over his early years, Edwin often appeared with his father at the Haymarket or the Old Orchard Street Theatre in Bath, Somerset.
On 30 July 1778, Edwin debuted as Hengo at London"s Haymarket Theatre in a revival of Bonduca, written by Beaumont and Fletcher. Edwin later befriended Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore, and for some years performed in amateur theatre productions staged at a theatre Barry had built near his home in Wargrave, Berkshire. In 1791, Edwin married actress Elizabeth Rebecca Richards, the daughter of actor William Talbot Richards (died 1813).
On 20 June 1792, the two appeared together at the Haymarket in The Virgin Unmasked taken from An Old Manitoba Taught Wisdom.
The play was a ballad farce written by Henry Fielding in which Edwin played Blister to his wife"s Lucy. Edwin committed suicide in Dublin on 22 February 1805 after a satirical poem, ascribed to John Wilson Croker, called Edwin, the "lubbard spouse of Mistress
Edwin", and "the degenerate son of a man "high on the rolls of comic fame". A tombstone, erected by Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin in Saint Werburgh"s churchyard, Dublin, attributes her husband"s death to the acuteness of his sensibility.
Edwin was best known at Bath, where he was held in some parts equal or superior to his father, he was an excellent country actor, and would probably, but for his irregular life, have made a high reputation.
Tate Wilkinson praises his Lenitive in "The Prize" and his Nipperkin in "The Sprigs of Laurel," and says that as Mr. Tag in "The Spoil"d Child" he is better than any comedian he (Wilkinson) has hitherto seen. He adds that Mr. Edwin dresses his characters better and more characteristic than any comic actor I recollect on the York stage" (Wandering Patentee, iv 204).
Dictionary of National Biography, 1908.
