Pelham, Sir Edmund (Edward) (d. 1606), chief baron of the Irish exchequer, was fifth son of Sir William Pelham (d. 1538) of Laughton, Sussex, England, and third son of William's second marriage, to Mary, daughter of William, 1st Baron Sandys. Admitted to Gray's Inn (1563), he was called to the bar (1574) and was an autumn reader at Gray's Inn (1588) and a Lent reader (1601). In 1601 he became a serjeant at law. He served as JP for Sussex, where he established his principal residence at Catsfield Manor, and was elected MP for Hastings in 1597, sitting on a number of committees in the ensuing parliament.
In early 1602 he was proposed as a suitable candidate to replace Sir Robert Napier as chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland. He was reluctant to accept this promotion, preferring to remain in London, and apparently secured assurances that he would not be continued in Dublin for more than a year. On arriving in Dublin to take up his position in September, he became embroiled in a dispute with Napier over who was entitled to the chief baron's salary from April to September 1602.
Following the end of the Nine Years War in Ireland in early 1603, he conducted a judicial circuit of Ulster, becoming the first English judge to do so in much of west Ulster. He reported that in Tyrconnell the people flocked to his judicial session and ‘did reverence him as if he had been a good angel sent from heaven, and prayed him upon their knees to return again to minister justice to them’ (CSPI 1603–6, 111). However, he also noted that the Ulster nobility were far warier. On 5 July 1604 he was living at Drogheda, Co. Louth.
In 1604 he visited England and was knighted by King James I at Greenwich (3 July). Back in Ireland he went on a circuit of western Leinster between 5 March and 5 April 1605, visiting Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King's Co., and Queen's Co., for which he was granted a concordatum of £42 13s. 4d. sterling on 18 April 1605. However, by March 1606 he was described as being very ill, and went to England. The lord deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester (qv), called him a learned and worthy judge but complained that his sickness had undermined the efficiency of the court of the exchequer. Pelham died at Chester while on his way back to Ireland on 4 June 1606.
He married Ellen (or Helen), daughter of Thomas Darrell, of Scotney, who was a recusant. They had five sons, including his heir, Herbert, and three daughters.