Reverend Edward Tickner Edwardes (1865–1944) was an English writer, beekeeper, medical officer and priest. He wrote one of the earliest accounts of

hitchhiking Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Signaling ...

in 1910 – ''Lift-luck on Southern Roads''. He served in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

Gallipoli The Gallipoli Peninsula (; ; ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name (), meaning ' ...

and then running a laboratory in Egypt. After the war, he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England and became the vicar of

Burpham Burpham () is a rural village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. The village is on an arm of the River Arun slightly less than northeast of Arundel. A slight minority of the population qualifies as within the w ...

Life

Beekeeping and writing

Edwardes wrote on nature and the countryside, published several works of fiction and a history of the RAMC in Egypt but in particular he was an enthusiastic

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees, a profession known as beekeeping. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. The beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper ow ...

and wrote many books on the subject. He was an active member of the Sussex Beekeepers' Association and attended their meetings regularly. He designed the 'Tickner Edwardes' beehive which took standard British frames but was heavily insulated, and the simplified Unit Hive for commercial beekeeping which had identical

brood chamber Brood may refer to: Nature * Brood, a collective term for offspring * Brooding, the incubation of bird eggs by their parents * Bee brood, the young of a beehive * Individual broods of North American periodical cicadas: ** Brood X, the largest br ...

s and

honey super A honey super is a part of a commercial or other human-managed beehive that is used to collect honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stor ...

s. At that time he lived in the Red Cottage on the main street of Burpham. He also had another cottage as a literary retreat as he continued to write books and contribute to periodicals. ''Lift-Luck on Southern Roads'' is thought to be the earliest published account of

. In it Edwardes describes a journey across Southern England saying “My plan consisted in waiting by the roadside or strolling gently onward, until something on wheels, it mattered not what, overtook me...by dint of laying under use the whole gamut of country perambulation, at length, after many days of travel, I found myself at my journey's end." Edwardes' novel ''Tansy'' about a

shepherdess A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of pastoralist animal husbandry. Because th ...

on the

Sussex Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the E ...

was made into a

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

in 1921, directed by

Cecil Hepworth Cecil Milton Hepworth (19 March 1874 – 9 February 1953) was a British film director, film producer, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the Cinema of the United Kingdom, British film industry and continued making films ...

, also titled ''

Tansy Tansy (''Tanacetum vulgare'') is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant in the genus ''Tanacetum'' in the aster family, native to temperate Europe and Asia. It has been introduced to other parts of the world, including North America, and in ...

''.

Military service

Edwardes was already an established writer and in his late forties at the outbreak of war in 1914. He served in the

RAMC The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

and Egypt. He ran a laboratory in Cairo and then when posted back to the UK, he served in the 1st London Sanitary Company and then the Anti-Malarial Research Laboratory at Sandwich. He started the war as a private but finished with a commission and the rank of Captain.

Clergyman

He was Rector of Folkington from 1925 to 1927 and Vicar of

in West Sussex from 1927 until his retirement in 1935. He and his wife Kathleen had four children – a son and three daughters. His son, Edward, became an RAF pilot but died in a crash in

Aden Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...

in 1928. Tickner himself died on 29 December 1944 and was buried in St Mary's Church in Burpham.

John Cowper Powys John Cowper Powys ( ; 8 October 187217 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse ...

was a friend and neighbour in Burpham. He wrote: "Edwardes was a man of meticulous nicety in his literary art. I recollect being confounded by the elaborate craftsmanship with which he laboured; pondering on words, taking words up, as it were, and laying them down, just as he did with the materials of his hives!" Powys especially "liked the toughwood texture of his bodily presence ... His long nose, his opaque, ivory-parchment skin, his tree-root neck, his shy, nervous, wild-animal brown eyes ... He possessed that grave, solid, imperturbable reserve, that stiff pride, mixed with disarming spasms of humility, that have characterized so many of the old-fashioned interpreters of English piety."

Works

*''An Idler in the Wilds'' 1906 *''The Bee-master of Warrilow'' 1907 *''The Lore of the Honey-bee'' 1908 *''Lift-luck on Southern Roads'' 1910 *''Neighbourhood; a year's life in and about an English village'' 1911 *''Side-lights of Nature in Quill and Crayon'' 1912 *''The Honey-Star'' 1913 *''Tansy'' 1914 *''Bees As Rent Payers'' 1914 *''With the RAMC in Egypt'' 1918 *''The Seventh Wave '' 1922 *''Bee-Keeping For All: A Manual Of Honey-Craft'' 1923 *''Bee-Keeping Do's And Dont's'' 1925 *''Sunset Bride '' 1927 *''Life's Silver Lining '' 1927 *''A Country Calendar'' 1928 *''Eve, The Enemy'' 1931 *''A Downland Year'' 1939

References

External links

The Red Cottage
– one of three houses in Burpham in which Edwardes lived * {{DEFAULTSORT:Edwardes, Edward Tickner 1865 births 1944 deaths 20th-century English Anglican priests English beekeepers English writers Royal Army Medical Corps officers