Reverend Henry Venn Elliott
(1792-1865)
30 October 1861

Volume 5, page 200, sitting number 6296.

Reverend Henry Venn Elliott was the Perpetual Curate of St Mary's in Brighton, and founder of St Mary's Hall, Brighton, an institution for educating the daughters of poor clergy. His sister Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871) wrote over 150 hymns, many of which were published in her brother's collection Psalms and Hymns (1835). His wife Julia Anne née Marshall (1809-1841), who also contributed eleven hymns anonymously to the same work, died in 1841 after the birth of their fifth child.

The 1861 census shows him a widower living at 31 Brunswick Square, Hove, Sussex, with two unmarried daughters, a son, Julius, and five servants, including a cook, a lady's maid, and a footman.

He died on 24 January 1865 at his residence in Brunswick Square 'after a short but severe illness' (John Bull, 28 January 1865). 'He was the Incumbent of St Mary's Chapel, St James's Street, and devotedly attached to his profession, untiring in his efforts to inculcate a religious feeling in the community, a man of great self-denial, and one who was looked up to as a pattern to society. There is no doubt that the town has sustained a great loss in the death of such a man, for he was greatly beloved and respected, and many a tear, we have no doubt, will be shed over his grave' (Brighton Gazette, 26 January 1865).