Basil Ede was born in Surrey, England in February 1931. He loved drawing from an early age. He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead and Guildford Technical College. In 1949 he joined 17th Regiment, The Royal Artillery and trained as a Gunner with 24/41 Training Battery at Oswestry followed by further training at Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot. He eventually completed his army service with the rank of Lieutenant. After the army Ede joined the Merchant Navy and became a Purser with HM Troopship 'Empire Orwell' voyaging back and forth from Southampton to Korea and the US Naval Base in Kure, Japan via Suez, Aden, Columbo, Hong Kong and Singapore. It was while in Japan that he became interested in Japanese bird painting, a style that initially influenced his own work. Ede's first major exhibition was a one man show at The Rowland Ward Gallery, London in 1958. He also had one man shows at The Tryon Gallery in 1960 and 1962. In 1964 he held a one man exhibition at The National Collection of Fine Arts of The Smithsonian in Washington DC, sponsored by Lord Harlech (UK Ambassador) , The English Speaking Union and The Audubon Naturalist Society of The Central Atlantic States. In 1965 his first book 'Birds of Town and Village' was published which included a foreward written by HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The book became a best seller and continued to be reprinted into the early 2000's. Further books included 'Basil Ede's Birds' (1980) and 'The Wild Birds of America - The Art of Basil Ede' (1991). Ede continued to paint until shortly before his death in 2016. His primary subject was birds, to which he went to great lengths to paint with ornithological and environmental accuracy, undertaking vast amounts of research, field notes , measurements and sketches. He became a keen conservationist and actively supported the work of The RSPB as well as several wildfowl and wetland conservation trusts in The United States.
Robert McCracken Peck, author and naturalist
The Hon. Walter H. Annenberg, art collector, philanthropist.
HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 1980
