Vale Hugh Edwards

By Ken Casellas

Seventy years ago, on April 24, 1954, Hugh Edwards made his league debut for Claremont when he lined up on a half-back flank against East Perth at Perth Oval and celebrated the occasion with a 32-point victory.

A product of Hale School and recruited from metropolitan junior club Collegians, Edwards was a hard-nosed and rugged defender who retired after ten league matches, with his final appearance in the final round of qualifying matches, against East Perth at Claremont Oval on September 15, 1956.

A reporter at Perth’s afternoon newspaper, the Daily News, Edwards then concentrated on his great passion as an adventurer, and now the Claremont Football Club mourns his death at the age of 90.

Edwards, born in Edinburgh, is fondly remembered as a suave and genial gentleman who is acclaimed as an author, journalist, underwater explorer and shark expert.

He loved the sea and everything in it, despite having many close encounters with sharks. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2009 for his services to Western Australia’s maritime history through the discovery of historic shipwrecks on the WA coast.

The author of more than 30 books, Edwards was one of the discoverers of the Dutch pleasure ship Batavia, which was lost in the Abrolhos Islands in 1629.