Charles Ede
British publisher
Charles Richard Montague Ede (22 October 1921 – 29 May 2002) was a British publisher and dealer in art and antiquities. He founded the Folio Society in 1947.
Early life
Ede was born at Dean Lodge, Sevenoaks, Kent, the eldest son of Colonel Bertram Montague Ede, a soldier and farmer. He was a grandson of Charles Montague Ede, a Hong Kong businessman. His father was later head of the MI5 outpost on Malta during the Second World War.
Ede was educated at the Imperial Service College, where a schoolmaster introduced him to the work of William Morris, the founder of the Kelmscott Press. He had a place to go up to Balliol College, Oxford, in October 1939, but war was declared in September, and instead he went to France as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps, delivering spares and supplies to units of the British Expeditionary Force. He was evacuated from Brest twelve days after the end of the Dunkirk evacuation in June 1940, trained as an army officer, and was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. He saw service at the Siege of Malta, in Mandatory Palestine, Egypt, and Italy, and then transferred to the Intelligence Corps.
Career
After the War, instead of going up to Oxford, as he had planned, Ede completed a course at the London School of Printing.
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