Born at Rangamatty in modern-day Bangladesh, to a father employed by the East India Company, he joined the British army in 1808 and saw several years' fighting as an officer in the Peninsula Wars against the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Close arrived in New South Wales with the 48th Northamptonshire Regiment of Foot on the 'Matilda' in 1817: the regiment was to be garrisoned in Sydney until 1824. In 1821 he became Acting Engineer of Public Works at Newcastle where he was instrumental in building a leading light beacon (later replaced by a lighthouse on Nobbys) and a fort.

Tiring of army life, he took up the government's offer of a land grant at Morpeth, an early participant in the land rush that saw the rapid settlement of the Hunter Valley by men deemed able to develop a commercial farming economy. These men, with their assigned convicts, were to establish the Hunter's agricultural base.

Close's large grant of 2560 acres, which he called Illulaung (the Aboriginal name for the Morpeth area), was to be at the centre of the rest of his life. On it he built two substantial dwellings, Closebourne and Morpeth House.

The government soon realised the value of the site and sought to purchase part of it for a town located at the limit of navigation for sea-going vessels, but no terms of sale could be agreed.

During the 1830s and 1840s Close leased or sold several allotments which became the nucleus of Morpeth, the principal port of the Hunter.

It was to be the place from which agricultural surpluses were shipped to Sydney and to which manufactured items were imported to meet the needs of the growing regional population.

Close played an active part in the life of the Maitland area. He was a Police Magistrate, became a member of the Maitland District Pastoral Association and the inaugural President of the Maitland Hospital Committee.

He was appointed to the Legislative Council. In 1843 he also became the warden presiding over the six elected councillors of the first Maitland District Council.

He established a coal mine near Morpeth, built the substantial brick and stone St James Church (to honour a promise he had made to God for being spared while fighting in Spain) and provided land for a cemetery. In his spare time he was a prolific artist in watercolours and pencilled sketches.

On a personal level Close had a genial, generous manner, and on his death the Sydney Morning Herald praised him for his "strong common sense and clearness of thought".

According to his biographer Ann Beaumont, in A Man of Many Parts: the Life and Times of Edward Charles Close, some of his assigned convicts continued working for him after being freed from servitude. He was generous to the poor and to churches.

Nevertheless he could be stringent: as Police Magistrate he sought the Governor's permission to exceed the permitted number of lashes (50) administered to convicts who had misbehaved, failed to work hard or sought to escape.

As the owner of the land on which Morpeth developed, Close was the key figure in the town's initial development.