Edward Lindsay Elwood, Rector of St. George’s church, Goderich, and archdeacon of Huron, was born in Cork, Ireland, December 13, 1810. His parents were Edward Elwood, Captain 7th Royal Fusiliers, and Esther nee Lindsay. The Elwoods belong to the gentry of Roscommon, Ireland. Our subject was educated at a private school in Dublin, taught by the Rev. T. P. Huddart, Chief Justice Hagarty being a pupil in the same school, and Trinity College, Dublin, being graduated A.B., in 1831, and receiving the degree of A.M., in course seven years later. He was ordained deacon October 6, 1833, by the Rev. Dr. Knox, of Kellaloe, and Priest on Ascension Day in 1836, by the Bishop of Limerick. His first curacy was in the parish of Skreen, diocese of Tuam; his second, Tanderagee, diocese of Armagh, and his third, Drumbanagher, also diocese of Armagh.
In 1848 Mr. Elwood came to Canada, and was locum tenens at York Mills, diocese of Toronto, a few months, and then became rector of St. George’s church, Goderich. In September, 1875, he was appointed archdeacon of Huron, and chaplain to the Lord Bishop. He is a scholarly an able preacher, and unusually pleasant reader, and much beloved in his parish.
Archdeacon Elwood was a trustee of the Goderich’ high school for several years, and takes a deep interest in educational matters, and everything pertaining to the mental and moral welfare of the town.
September 15, 1836, he married Ellen, .daughter of Rev. John Yeats, of Drumcliffe, Ireland, and she was the mother of eleven children, seven of them yet living. She died August 7, 1870, greatly lamented by a very large circle of friends.
Of the seven children who survive her, all are married but two, Mary Jane and William Butler, who are at home. Esther, the eldest daughter, is the wife of Rev. Isaac Middleton, B.A., of Oshawa; Ellen S. M. is the wife of Horace Conquest, of Clifton, Ontario; Rebecca is the wife of Philip A. Holt, barrister, firm Cameron, Holt and Cameron, Goderich; George Vesey is in the inland revenue office at Stratford, and Henry Taylor is in business in Chicago.
Archdeacon Elwood is a stout built, thick set man, hardly up to the average height, but not quite small enough and sufficiently adipose to answer to Thomson’s portrait in the “Castle of Indolence: “A little, round, fat, oily man of God.” He has a very cheerful disposition; a cordiality and whole heartedness which put a stranger on good terms with him at once, and is, in short, a sunny souled christian. His face is full, open and broad, and on it, as Sydney Smith said of Francis Homer’s face, are written the ten commandments.