Robert Hazard Edwards died at home on Nov. 30, 2025. An American citizen, Rob was born in London and raised in Middletown, Ohio.  His father worked for a steel company based in Ohio and met his mother in England.  They moved to the US during the war in 1940. He attended public schools in Ohio, was an Eagle scout, and finished high school at Deerfield Academy. He received an A.B. in English from Princeton University and read law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, where he received a B.A. in 1959 and an M.A. in 1977.  In 1961, Rob earned an LL.B. from Harvard University and was admitted to the federal bar.

As a young law school graduate, he was awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship in Bechuanaland (now Botswana). He worked with young African politicians preparing for that country's independence, helping to write Bechuanaland's first development plan. From 1963-65, Rob was with the US Department of State's Bureau of United Nations Affairs, where he worked on African decolonization policy issues.  He joined the Ford Foundation in 1965, becoming its representative in Pakistan in 1968. In 1971, he returned to New York to become head of the Foundation's Middle East and African Office. 

In 1977, Rob was appointed president of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, a post he held for nine years. In 1986, he was recruited as department head of Health, Education and Housing for the Secretariat of His Highness the Aga Khan. He lived in Paris during his tenure with Aga Khan, developing schools and hospitals on the east coast of Africa and South Asia. He married Blythe, his second wife, while in Paris. 

Together, he and Blythe moved to Edgecomb, Maine in 1990, when Rob was appointed president of Bowdoin College. They left Bowdoin in 2001, but the friendships from that time sustained them through an enchanted retirement. Rob and Blythe loved Maine and loved stewarding the woods and coastline near their home. A portion of this land is now under conservation with Edgecomb-based Midcoast Conservancy. After Blythe died at the end of 2024, Rob moved to The Lincoln Home in Newcastle, Maine, where he made many friends and relished his final months.

He will be greatly missed by his daughters, Elizabeth “Eliza” Hazard Edwards, and Daphne Hazard Edwards and her husband Joe; and by his grandsons, Oliver Skye Rodgers, Dominic Dylan Delong-Rodgers and his wife, Autumn; and by his sister, Barbara Edwards Hicks, and her husband, Paul.

He was predeceased by his wife, Blythe Bickel Edwards, in 2024; and by his son, Nicholas Hazard Edwards, in 2011. He embraced Blythe’s children as his own, and is survived by this extended family: Jonathan Kaufmann and his wife, Katherine, and their children, William, Grant, and Elizabeth; and William Kaufmann and his son, Lorenzo Kaufmann Albano.

Rob will be laid to rest with Blythe in Edgecomb in the spring. Arrangements are under the direction and care of the Strong-Hancock Funeral Home, 612 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME 04543. Condolences, and messages for his family may be expressed by visiting: www.StrongHancock.com.