Lancashire born James Edge arrived in Australia in 1912 and joined the Canterbury club. He was a star player with the team and in 1914 played at Centre Forward for NSW against Queensland.
At the end of the 1914 season he enlisted and landed at Gallipoli where he contracted enteric fever. He died in a military hospital at Mudros on the island of Lemnos on 3 August 1915 at the age of 27.