The Reverend William Thompson Elliott was formally inducted as the fifth vicar of St. John’s at the church itself on 9th February 1912. The officiating clergyman was the Venerable Archdeacon Francis Charles Kilner, assisted by the Reverend John Wood (curate of St. John’s) and the Reverend L. S. Robinson (rector of Keighley). Rev. Elliott had been serving as the vicar for Hainton-with-Sixhills in Lincolnshire, and had previously served as curate at Holy Trinity Church in Leeds and at St. Chad’s Church in Headingley. His father, the Reverend William Hayward Elliott, was Vicar of Bramhope. He was born on 15th November 1880 and was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and at Queen’s College, Oxford, from where he graduated with an M. A. in mathematics and history. He married Nora Walker and they had two sons and three daughters.
The church was closed in August 1913 for more redecorating and the installation of electric lights (the old gas light fittings went to Cullingworth Church). He was vicar of St. John’s at the outbreak of the First World War and was connected with local volunteers. Both the vicar and his curate, the Reverend Harry Francis Steel, were players with Ingrow Cricket Club (there wasn’t a church affiliated cricket team at this time). Reverend Elliott was also chaplain to the Keighley Branch of the Actors’ Church Union (including holding special services for the theatrical profession).
In December 1915, Rev. Elliott was offered the living of All Saints’ Church in Bradford. He preached his farewell sermon at St. John’s on Sunday 16th January 1916. He had served five years in the post. He became Canon and Sub-Dean of Liverpool Cathedral in 1924 and then Vicar and Rural Dean between 1926 and 1938. He was appointed Canon Residentiary of Westminster in 1938. He died suddenly of a heart attack on 20th June 1940 while visiting his wife in Streetly, near Birmingham. His ashes are buried in the vault in the lower Islip Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
His death was announced in the Keighley News of 22nd June 1940: “The death on Thursday, at the age of 60 (sic), of Canon W. Thompson Elliott, former Vicar of Leeds, who was Canon Residentiary of Westminster, has come as a great shock both to religious and lay life of the city, in which for 12 years his 6ft., broad-shouldered figure, broad smile, deep voice, and outspoken views had made him one of the most familiar and respected of men… He was a man of great intellectual ability who was always able to lighten his philosophy with a happy sense of humour which he could invariably make to fit the occasion.”
Portraits by Hall & Siggers, from the St. John’s Church archive. Researched and collated by Tim Neal.
I have a picture of William Thompson Elliot from a Rotary Magazine taken in 1926. I thinks its at a Rotary Convention in the USA. Also on the picture is William Moffatt who was my wifes Grandfather.