The concept of electric fields was introduced by Michael Faraday. However 25 years before Faraday's birth Luigi Galvani began investigating the action of static electricity upon the muscles of frogs and when Faraday was 9 years old Alessandro Volta developed the voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery. Faraday was a contemporary of other names synonymous with research into electricity such as Georg Simon Ohm and Andr�-Marie Amp�re.
Static electricity itself was known of by the ancient Greeks and Babylonians.
As for Edison, he neither invented nor was the first person to patent the incandescent lightbulb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_bulb