William Henry Elton

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William Henry Elton
Memorial plaque for WH Elton in St. Michael's Sandakan

William Henry Elton ( 1845 - December 17, 1914 in London ) was an Anglican clergyman. He was the first Anglican priest from Sandakan in British North Borneo and was instrumental in the planning and construction of the Church of St. Michael's and All Angels .

Life

William Henry Elton was born in 1845. He received his education at King's College London . He was ordained in 1870 and initially served as a curate in London from 1870 to 1874 .

As a highgate school teacher, he taught some of the nephews of Francis Thomas McDougall, the first Anglican missionary in Borneo. His interest in Borneo grew out of a meeting with McDougall.

He began his missionary service overseas in Ceylon in 1874 . In 1880 he was transferred to New Zealand. He spent the first year in Rakaia , Canterbury , after which he worked as Junior Curat and Precentor at ChristChurch Cathedral in Christchurch until 1988 .

In June 1888 Elton received his appointment as a "clergyman for the officials of the British North Borneo Chartered Company and the other Europeans" in the office of the Anglican mission organization Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts .

In July 1888 Elton embarked in London and reached Sandakan on September 2, 1888, a Sunday. At that time there was no vicariate, so he was quartered with William Burgess Pryer and his wife Ada Pryer until further notice .

Elton immediately devoted himself to the spiritual care of the Europeans in Sandakan and began planning the construction of a church, a vicariate, a school for boys and a school for girls.

On June 11, 1889, he had his wife Annie and three young children follow from England to North Borneo .

His missionary work in North Borneo manifested itself in the care and opening of various Anglican church congregations. The opening of the first Christian mission house in Keningau in 1896 goes back to Elton as well as the Anglican commitment among the Chinese Christians in Kudat. Elton remained closely associated with his congregation, scattered throughout what is now Sabah, throughout his service; so he made it his business to visit every European in the country at least once a year.

Although a school for boys had been opened in Sandakan two years before his arrival by the Mill Hill missionaries , Elton ignored the concerns of the notables and opened the Sandakan Boy's School in October 1888 with only one student . A small boarding school for foreign students was opened on May 1st of the following year. In 1899 the school was expanded to include an annex behind the vicariate, so that Elton's wish for a Sandakan Girl's School was finally fulfilled.

Elton left Sandakan in early April 1914. On the trip to England he fell ill and had to undergo an operation on his arrival, which was unsuccessful.

William Henry Elton died on December 17, 1914.

His wife Annie lived on a small estate in Kudat until 1927 and then returned to England, where she died in 1928.

Elton's diary

Elton kept a diary of his work in Sandakan. After he had finished his service in Borneo in 1914, the diary was continued by his successors until it was finally buried for safety reasons during the Japanese occupation. After the war it came into the archives of the USPG House. In 1976 the diary of Rev. Brian Taylor was made available to the public. Similar to Ada Pryer's diary, the diary is one of the primary sources on colonial life in Sandakan.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Brian Taylor; Preface to THE ELTON HILL 'DIARY'
  2. ^ Taylor, p. 4
  3. ^ Taylor, p. 5
  4. ^ Taylor, p. 6
  5. ↑ John Rooney: Khabar Gembira: History of the Catholic Church in East Malaysia and Brunei, 1880-1976 , page 186, 1981, Burns and Oates Ltd Wellwood North Farm rd, Tunbridge Wells Kent, ISBN 978-0860121220
  6. ^ The Straits Times: The Late Rev. WH Elton.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 5, 1915, page 6; Accessed January 22, 2013@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / newspapers.nl.sg  
  7. ↑ a b Tylor, p. 43

Remarks

  1. ↑ However, the mission station had to be closed again in 1897 because one of the two teachers, HJ Edney, was permanently unable to work due to illness.
personal data
SURNAME Elton, William Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Anglican clergyman
DATE OF BIRTH 1845
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1914
Place of death London