He was born on 18 June 1931 at Catford, London. Leaving school at 16, he worked at Lloyds of London before and after National Service. Converted through the influence of a friend, he joined the Kingsway Hall in the West London Mission and became involved in the Order of Christian Witness. He trained for the ministry at Handsworth College and received a Birmingham MA for his research into Cornish Methodism. While stationed in the Oxford Circuit 1968-1973, he taught Church History and New Testament at Westminster College. From 1973 to 1980 he was on the staff of St. Paul's United Theological College, Limuru, Kenya, including periods as Vice-Principal and acting Principal. His passionate concern for social justice found academic expression in his work on the 'rejected prophet', S.E. Keeble, (M.Litt., Bristol, 1969; WHS Lecture, 1972, published 1977) and on J.R. Stephens, whose biography he wrote under the title Purge This Realm (1994). He died on 3 September 1997.
His wife Maureen Edwards, born in Penzance in 1933, trained as a teacher at Southlands and Westminster Colleges and taught RE both in England and then in Kenya. From 1981 to 1991 she was Resource Secretary for the Overseas Division and since then has been a freelance writer and editor, including the Methodist Prayer Handbook 1996-2005. She has written a number of Bible study and devotional books.