George Edwards was born in Clerkenwell in 1788. His mother was an
alcoholic and for a while he lived with his father in Bristol.
After returning to London he was apprenticed
to a statue maker in Smithfield. According to people who knew him
from this period, Edwards was very poor and often went about barefoot.
In the 1790s Edwards was making plaster of Paris busts of famous people
and selling them on street-corners. Edwards moved to Windsor where
he rented a small shop in Eton High Street. One of his customers was
Major-General Sir Herbert Taylor, who recruited him as a Home Office
spy.
In 1818 Edwards moved back to London where
he made friends with John Brunt, a member
of the Spencean Philanthropists. Edwards
appeared to hold radical political views and talked about wanting
to kill members of the government. Brunt introduced Edwards to his
radical friends and he was soon attending Spencean meetings. Edwards
sent a constant flow of reports to the authorities. His accounts of
the meetings, which are preserved in the Public Record Office, were
written on narrow strips of paper that were then folded into a small
square and passed to John Stafford, Chief
Clerk at Bow Street Police Station.
Arthur Thistlewood and Edwards got
on well together. Some of the group raised doubts about Edwards and
suggested he might be a spy. On one occasion Edwards attempted to
give one member, William Tunbridge, a pistol that he could use against
the government. Tunbridge refused replying: "Mr. Edwards, you
may tell your employers that they will not catch me in their trap."
Thistlewood was convinced Edwards was genuine and in December 1819,
he made him his aide-de-camp.
In 1820 Edwards played an active role in persuading people he met
to join the Spencean Philanthropists.
He also joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society where he recruited
several new members to Thistlewood's group. At meetings Edwards constantly
called for an armed uprising to overthrow the government. It was Edwards'
idea to start the revolution by assassinating Lord
Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth. It
was also Edwards who told Thistlewood about the item in the New
Times that revealed that several members of the British government
were going to have dinner at Lord Harrowby's house at 39 Grosvenor
Square.
George Edwards kept John Stafford fully informed on the Cato
Street Conspiracy and the authorities had no difficulty in arresting
all the men involved in the plot. After the experience of the previous
trial of the Spenceans, the Home Secretary,
Lord Sidmouth was unwilling to use the
evidence of his spies in court. Edwards, the person with a great deal
of information on the conspiracy, was never called. In fact, by the
time the trial took place, Edwards had already left the country.
After the execution of Arthur Thistlewood,
William Davidson, James
Ings, Richard Tidd, and John
Brunt questions were raised in Parliament about the role played
by Edwards in this case. On 2nd May, 1820, Matthew Wood stated in
the House of Commons that he had information that revealed that Edwards
was an agent provocateur who had organised the Cato
Street Conspiracy himself and then betrayed it for 'Blood Money'.
Joseph Hume complained that Edwards was one
of several spies that the government had used to incite rebellion
in an effort to smear the campaign for parliamentary reform.
During the trial of Arthur Thistlewood
and the other conspirators, Edwards was living in Guernsey. This was
only a temporary hiding place and after a short period in Guernsey
the government arranged for him to obtain a new identity, and like
several former government spies, George Edwards, now known as George
Parker, was sent to South Africa. Edwards worked as a modeller at
Green Point until his death on 30th November, 1843.
(1)
Edward Aylmer, George Edwards (1820)
Edwards
was not merely an informer, who appeared to accede to the plots of
others for the purpose of revealing and defeating them: he was a diabolical
wretch who created the treason he disclosed, who went about - a fiend
in human form - inflaming distressed and desperate wretches into crimes,
in order that he might betray them to justice and make profit of their
blood.
(2)
James Ings claimed in court that George Edwards
had been an agent provocateur
who had helped organise the conspiracy.
The Attorney-General knows
Edwards. He knew all the plans for two months before I was acquainted
with it. When I was before Lord Sidmouth, a gentleman said Lord Sidmouth
knew all about this for two months. I consider myself murdered if
Edwards is not brought forward. I am willing to die on the scaffold
with him.
I conspired to put Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth out of this
world, but I did not intend to commit High Treason. I did not expect
to save my own life, but I was determined to die a martyr in my country's
cause.
(3)
George Edwards wrote a letter to Henry Hobhouse, Permanent Under-Secretary
at the Home Office, on 5th May, 1820.
According to your desire I gave all the papers I had in my possession
together with the copy of Depositions to the gentleman you sent to
me on Sunday evening last. I am now in the Isle of Guernsey and think
I may remain here in perfect safety till you direct otherwise.
My money will be exhausted by the time I hear from you. I beg leave
your benevolent attention to my family whom I am sure must want financial
assistance by the time this letter reaches you. Whatever way you direct
my wife to proceed in, she will get my brother to accomplish. All
letters I receive from you shall be destroyed as soon as read.
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