▶Date of birth:  8 December 1858        Place of birth: St John’s Wood, London, Middlesex

▶Father:  Arthur Shelley Eddis     Mother: Elizabeth May Wright

▶Spouse(s):  Elizabeth Catherine Jackson    Date(s) of marriage:  15 July 1884     Place(s) of marriage: Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: John Elwin Eddis worked as a Curate in Cheltenham in the late 1880s before serving in parishes across the southern part of England from Truro to Suffolk. He was born in St John’s Wood, London, in 1858, the fourth son of Arthur Shelley Eddis QC, County Court Judge, of 37 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London, and his wife Elizabeth May (née Wright). Eddis attended Charterhouse School from 1873, and matriculated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1877, BA 1882, MA 1890. He attended the Clergy School, Leeds, was ordained Deacon (Oxford) in 1884, and was licensed Curate of Witney in Oxfordshire in 1884. In the same year he married Elizabeth Catherine, second daughter of Sir Charles R. M. Jackson, Judge of the Supreme Court, Calcutta; they had two sons (both killed in the First world War) and a daughter.

In 1886 he was ordained Priest (Winchester) and moved to Godalming in Surrey as Curate, before accepting the curacy of All Saints, Cheltenham 1888-90; in his Cheltenham years he lived at 46 Clarence Square, Pittville. In 1890 he moved to Truro in Cornwall as Vicar of St Paul’s (where he was also Chaplain to the Workhouse), before returning to the Godalming area in 1894 as Vicar of Witley, Godalming 1894-1902.

After this he was appointed Vicar of Great Barton, Suffolk 1902-7 and then Vicar of Ryde, Isle of Wight 1907-19. Between 1913 and 1919 he served as Rural Dean of East Wight, and finally as Vicar of Bisham, Berkshire from 1924 until his death at Bisham Vicarage in 1928, at the age of sixty-nine. William Foxley-Norris wrote of him, ‘If ever there was a good man he was one’ (Alumni Cantabrigienses).

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Godalming, Surrey      Moved from Pittville to: Truro, Cornwall

▶Date of death:  10 May 1928      Place of death: Bisham Vicarage, Berkshire

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 5859

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden