Edward Blake was born on October 13, 1833, in Adelaide, Ontario, the son of William Hume Blake, an Irish-Canadian jurist, and politician, and the brother of Samuel Hume Blake, a lawyer.

He was a lawyer, the second Premier of Ontario, Canada (1871-1872), and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (1880 -1887). He was educated at Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, receiving a B.A. degree in 1854 and an M.A. degree in 1856. After finishing college, he decided to pursue a career in law and entered a partnership with Stephen M. Jarvis in Toronto. When his brother Samuel Hume Blake joined soon afterward, it was Blake & Blake and today the firm is known as Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. In 1867, he was recruited into politics by George Brown, one of the Fathers of Confederation, and won a seat in the Canadian House of Commons from the district of South Bruce, Ontario. In 1868, he became the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and Premier of Ontario in 1871 but left provincial politics to run in the 1872 federal election, in which he was re-elected. He played a major role in exposing the government of Sir John A. Macdonald's complicity in the Pacific Scandal forcing the government's resignation. Blake was offered the prime ministership but turned it down due to ill health. When the Liberals won the subsequent 1874 federal election, he joined the cabinet of Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie and served as Minister of Justice and President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. From 1876 to 1900, he was the Chancellor of the University of Toronto. The Liberals were defeated in the 1878 election, and Blake succeeded Mackenzie as a party leader in 1880. He resigned in 1887 and in the 1892 election, Blake entered the British House of Commons as an Irish Nationalist Member of Parliament. In 1895, he was appointed to the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations between Great Britain and Ireland.

In 1857, he married Margaret Cronyn. He died on March 1, 1912, in Toronto, Ontario.