Edward Wilton Eddis

Edward Wilton Eddis (* 10 May 1825, Islington; † 18 October 1905, Toronto) was a poet and prophet in the Catholic Apostolic Church at Westminster, London and co-author of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches, the hymnal of the Catholic Apostolic Church.

Edward Wilton Eddis was born on 10 May 1825 in Islington as the last of the five children of Eden Eddis (*1784,† 1838) and Clementia Parker (*1789,† 1875). His eldest brother was the portrait artist Eden Upton Eddis. The other three were: Clementia Esther Eddis (*31 December 1815, † 16 December 1887), Arthur Shelly Eddis (*11 January 1817, † 23 May 1893) and Henry William Eddis (*30 November 1820, † 1911, Ontario). Edward Wilton Eddis married Ellen Sheppard (*12 May 1829, † 5 February 1878, Berrima, New South Wales, Australia) in the late 1840s or the beginning of the 1850s and they had four children: Ellen M. Eddis (*1854, † 1892 in Melbourne, Victoria), Wilton Clement Eddis (*1855, † 1919), Marion Elizabeth Eddis (*1862, † 1893 in Carlton, Victoria) and Ethel Shearman Eddis (*1864 in England, † 1884 in Prn Alfho, Australia). Given the places of birth of his children and the places of death of his wife, he married Ellen Sheppard before 1854 and the family must have moved to Australia in the late 1860s or the 1870s. Furthermore, Edward Wilton Eddis was unfortunate to survive three of his children.

E.W. Eddis was a member of the Catholic Apostolic Church and he was appointed as a prophet by its Westminster congregation. He probably became a member of the church before 1850 as he wrote in 1851 his collection of poetry entitled The Time of the End and Other Poems, a collection that was in line with catholic apostolic church thought. Around 1860, Edward Wilton Eddis and John George Francis (?-1889) had a theological dispute with John Ross Dix when the latter published The New Apostles; or, Irvingism, its history, doctrines, and practices in 1860, an attack on the Catholic Apostolic Church. Base for this attack probably was John George Francis' book A discourse on the office of Apostle, published in 1848 by George Barclay in London. Eddis' 1860 letter The True Revival of the Church of Christ, and her hope in the last days was likely a response to Dix' critical book as it refers to a book entitled The New Apostles.

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