THE EDWARDS FAMILY NAME IN MAURITIUS
If you are searching for an Edwards family ancestor who was born in Mauritius, you are most likely to be related to the branch which originated with a British military officer, Wilbraham Tollemache Edwards, who arrived with the conquering forces in 1810. This Englishman was at that time a Major in the 86th Regiment. After the conquest of the island he remained for some years stationed at Bourbon and Mauritius where he fathered a child, Arthur, with Marie Felicité d’Espagnac née Sornay in 1814. This lady seems to have been of mixed origins, as her son Arthur Edwards became a prominent member of the ‘coloured’ community. Arthur had a distinguished career becoming a member of the legislative council in 1857 and mayor of Port Louis in 1858. One of his sons was a doctor, and another an attorney.
Death Certificate
It is likely that Edmund Jules Edwards who was also an attorney, and who died in 1874 [see the death certificate above] is related to this family.
However, during the course of the century and a half that Mauritius was a British colony, numbers of other English soldiers and sailors named Edwards came to the island; and a few died there: they include Robert and or John Edwards serving with the 22nd regiment who died on the island in 1815 and another Robert Edwards, serving with the Royal Navy who died in 1820/1.
The doyen of the Edwards family in Mauritius, who became a Brigadier-General, resumed his military career and was killed at Bhurtpore, India in 1826. There is a memorial to his memory and that of a fellow officer, at Meerut, which reads:
“Sacred to the memory of Brigadier-General W.T. Edwards
His Majesty’s 14th Regiment,
and Captain H.B. Armstrong of the same Corps,
who in the successful assault on the Fortress of Bharatpur
on the morning of 8 January 1826,
fell on the ramparts in the gallant discharge of his duty,
General Edwards leading the left column of the attack.
This tablet is erected by their brother officers.”
The above mentioned was the father of my Great, Great Grandfather Captain John Alexander who settled in Australia.