Edgar was the second son of Amaro John and Maria Rita Reed. Before the war, Edgar was a chartered accountant in the Taxation Department of the Hong Kong Government. He and his brothers attended Diocesan Boys School, and Edgar went on to study at St.
In her book “Forgotten Souls. A Social History of the Hong Kong Cemetery”, Patricia Lim devotes a whole chapter to the History of the Free Masons in Hong Kong. She reckons that about eighty headstones in the cemetery carry the masonic symbol of compasses and set square. She includes a description of a masonic funeral as follows: