Elwyn Hartley Edwards

Also a respected authority on conformation and on lorinery (the metal parts of harness and tack, such as bits) and saddlery, he shared his learning with lecture audiences as well as readers. His light wit was particularly engaging in the lecture hall, so much so that conference organisers would often entrust him with the “graveyard slot” after the lunchbreak when other speakers — but not he — customarily sent their audiences to sleep.

He wrote more than 30 books on every sort of horse-related subject, and also many hundreds of articles. For 18 years he edited Riding magazine, and for five years was consultant editor of Horse & Hound. He was a great supporter of equestrian charities, also acting as mentor to countless young riders and trainers and, with typical generosity, waiving the fee for the column he contributed over many years to the British Horse Society magazine, British Horse.

Elwyn Hartley Edwards was born into a Welsh family whose associations with India extend back over three centuries. The son of an Indian Army officer, he was born at sea between India and Britain, his birth eventually being registered at Denbigh, North Wales. His early childhood was spent in India, where he rode his first pony. Aged 13 he returned to Britain for schooling, but was so enamoured of India that he was back at his earliest opportunity — aged 18, a couple of years before Partition. Taking a commission with the Gurkhas, he served with them for 13 years in a number of theatres, including India, Malaya and Korea, being awarded the Military Cross and achieving the rank of captain.

He was at one time seconded to the Army of Pakistan, and lived for a while with tribesmen of the North West Frontier, which inspired his first book, on the ethnic groupings of the Himalayan tribes, completed at the precocious age of 22. He was also posted for a period to an army remount depot, and spent time lecturing on military history at the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun.

In 1955 he married Mary Hodgson, returning to Britain with her in the late 1950s, and joining Gibson Saddlers, of Newmarket, where he became managing director. Under the auspices of its founder, Lieutenant-Colonel F.E. Gibson, the firm was then moving away from the old-fashioned hunt seat towards an all- purpose saddle adapted from a showjumping saddle, and it was Hartley Edwards’s design work there that sowed the seeds for his first equestrian book, Saddlery, published by J.A. Allen in 1963, reprinted ten times since and brought out in a new, revised edition only three months before his death.

This encyclopaedic tome filled a gap in the market as the director of Badminton Horse Trials, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Weldon, acknowledged in his foreword: “Never before has anyone attempted to explain in simple language the use and purpose of the bewildering variety of equipment and clothing which has been devised for the comfort and protection of the horse both in the stable and at work.” This “simple language” was as much a keynote of Hartley Edwards’s writing as his deep and wideranging scholarship. Writing about complex subjects, he used lucid English, without frills, and with such an easy directness that it was as if he were talking to his readers face to face. Published at a time when equestrianism as a hobby for the new middle classes was really taking off, the book sold phenomenally well, and Hartley Edwards followed its success with more than 30 other equestrian titles, including at least four more on saddlery. Both experienced riders and the thousands of postwar novices found that in works such as his Complete Book of Horse and Saddle Equipment, his Complete Book of Bits and Bitting and even his ambitiously titled Complete Book of the Horse, Hartley Edwards gave them exactly what it said on the cover: his books were nothing if not comprehensive.

They sold extraordinarily well around the world, partly reflecting the international perspective from which he often wrote, and were translated into 12 languages, Mandarin being the one that seemed to tickle his fancy most. Along with the many reprints, there were revisions, too, as he kept pace with new developments. He was always receptive to innovations such as new saddlery materials and improved production methods, and was more than once heard to say as he gave the thumbs-up to some new product: “Why not? After all, we don’t still play golf with a hickory shaft.”

At home in Chwilog, Gwynedd, he was still writing and giving generously of his time and expertise to a variety of equestrian projects well into his 81st year. He kept fewer horses as the years went by, but instituted the philanthropic practice of buying an interest in other people’s horses and ponies if he approved of what they were doing, and it gave them a leg up in hard times. Sian Thomas, a BHS-registered instructor based near his home in Wales, was one of many whose talent he spotted and whom he encouraged to fulfil their equestrian potential. Crucially, he gave her and others guidance when they badly needed it and refrained from interfering when they didn’t: a difficult line to walk.

He retained business and charitable interests in India, a country that he loved and to which he regularly returned. He even gave Indian names to his dachsunds. Humorous incidents from his life there and in the many other countries he visited were grist to his mill as an accomplished raconteur. “He was a true delight to work with, incredibly charming and generous and very, very funny,” his publisher at J.A. Allen, Cassandra Campbell, said this week.

Hartley Edwards served as a regional chairman of the British Horse Society and as a member of the BHS council, receiving the society’s Award of Merit in 1993. He was also a vice-president of the Riding for the Disabled Association and vice-patron of the Horse and Pony Protection Association.

He is survived by his wife, Mary, and by their two daughters.

Elwyn Hartley Edwards, MC, equestrian writer and editor, was born on April 17, 1927. He died on December 9, 2007, aged 80