Edward Wilton Eddis

Life

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.

In his activities for the Catholic and Apostolic Church Eddis edited together with John Bate Cardale the Hymns for the Use of the Churches, the first Catholic Apostolic Hymnal: (see below). After moving to Australia, Edward Wilton Eddis was one of the 11 clergy operating for the Catholic Apostolic Church in Melbourne in the 1880s and 1890s. To this group of clergy also belonged Robert Appleton, George Clark, William Hinscliff, John Kirkhope, William Miller, William Patten, R G Suter, Edward Tucker, Percy Whitestone, and William Wilson. On 18 October 1905, E.W. Eddis died in Toronto.

Hymns for the Use of the Churches

A committee consisting of at least Edward Wilton Eddis (the leading member) and John Bate Cardale, Apostle for England in the Catholic Apostolic Church, compiled the first and only official hymn-book of the Catholic Apostolic Church for the use of their congregations, and published it in 1864 with the title Hymns for the Use of the Churches (London, Bosworth & Harrison). Through the extensive knowledge and obliging help of Mr Sedgwick, the names of the authors of many of the Hymns have been ascertained and affixed to their compositions. Probably this is Revd Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian professor of Geology at Cambridge.

This hymnal was intended for use in public worship of the Church and in private devotional exercises. However, the hymns with respect to the holy communion and the eucharist (part I), were to be used in the Communion exclusively. The 1864 edition contained 205 hymns, of which nineteen were his original poems, and two translations. The second edition of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches was a revised and enlarged edition with 320 hymns and 44 doxologies. It was published in 1871 (London, J. Strangeways). To this E.W. Eddis contributed forty new hymns and one translation, thus making 62 hymns by E.W. Eddis. The third edition of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches appeared in 1875 and also contains 320 hymns and 44 doxologies; it is a reprint of that of 1871 with a few verbal alterations. Most of the hymntexts were taken from other hymnals and sometimes slightly altered:

And some hymns were provided by:

Compared to the Hymns Ancient and Modern, which first appeared in 1861, a comparable set of hymn-books and individual hymns was used to compile the Hymns for the Use of the Churches. A difference lays in the alterations towards premillennialism and the contribution of original hymns phrasing catholic apostolic thought, mainly provided by Edward Wilton Eddis. Four of Eddis' hymns were taken from The Time of The End, And Other Poems (1851) and appeared in the Hymns for the Use of the Churches in an abbreviated and/or altered form:

Only some of Eddis' hymns are found in other hymnbooks such as O brightness of the Immortal Father's Face (translation from Greek), In us the hope of glory and Thou Standest at the Altar Besides Edward Wilton Eddis, also other writers provided hymn texts. Some of them only appended their initials to their newly written hymns and translations, as they declined to give their name to the public. The initials of those contributors were: C., C.E., C.E.E., E., E.E., E.H., E.S., E.O., F.R., F.F., F.W., H., J.E.L., L., L.E.L., L.W., M.E.A., M.S., R.F.L. and S.A. For some it is known to which persons these initials correspond:

The Hymns for the Use of the Churches contained a series of hymns translated from Greek and Latin. As such, this was a custom that was practiced in the Oxford Movement as well. From John Mason Neale, who was affected by the Oxford Movement, 16 translations were included in the second edition of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches. Much Catholic Apostolic teaching reflects the revival of catholic tradition within the Anglican Church, largely initiated by the parallel Oxford Movement, though it is difficult to determine the precise extent of direct influence of one upon the other - Columba Graham Flegg suggests that this was slighter than often supposed.

The Hymns for the Use of the Churches, however, only provided hymntexts, no music. In 1872, Edmund Hart Turpin, organist of the central church on Gordon Square, helped to bridge this gap by publishing the Hymn Tunes. For each of the 320 hymns in the 1871 edition of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches it contains a tune without the lyrics. Furthermore, it provides four metrical chants, one of which was written by Edmund Hart Turpin. Most of the hymn tunes were taken from other hymnbooks such as the Hymns Ancient and Modern. In total 39 tunes were newly written by Edmund Hart Turpin. The musical style of the Hymn Tunes is comparable to that of the Hymns Ancient and Modern, the famous hymnal which resulted out of the Oxford Movement in 1861. A comparison of the Hymn tunes with the Hymns for the Use of the Churches shows that most of these new tunes were to support the hymns of Edward Wilton Eddis.

Books

Hymns and translations

In the second edition of the Hymns for the Use of the Churches (1871) as well as the third edition of 1875, the following hymns and translations of E.W. Eddis were published:

Hymns

Translations