Edward Hull was born on May 21, 1829, in Antrim, Ireland.

He was an Irish geologist, stratigrapher, educator, and author. He studied engineering at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A., 1850; M.A., 1871). In 1850, he joined the Geological Survey of Great Britain and was responsible for mapping the south Lancashire coalfield. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867. He also worked as a district surveyor for the Geological Survey of Scotland (1867-1868) and led an expedition to survey parts of Arabia Petraea and Palestine (1883). He was President of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland in 1873. He was also a professor of geology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. He published many books, e.g., "The Coal-Fields of Great Britain" (1861) and "Contributions to the Physical History of the British Isles" (1882). He received an honorary LL.D from the University of Glasgow in 1879 and a Murchison medal from the Geological Society of London in 1890. He retired in 1891.

In 1857, he married Mary Catherine Henrietta Cooke (1829–1901). He died on October 18, 1917, in Middlesex, England.