Background
The sixth son of Joseph Ellis, hotel-keeper, of Richmond, was born there on 7 June 1830.
The sixth son of Joseph Ellis, hotel-keeper, of Richmond, was born there on 7 June 1830.
He entered, at the age of sixteen, the business of Edward Lumley of Chancery Lane, and afterwards became assistant to C. J. Stewart, a bookseller of King William Street, Strand, London from whom he acquired his knowledge of books In 1885 Ellis retired from business, and his stock of rarities was sold by Messrs. Sotheby for about £16,000.
Ellis died at Sidmouth on 26 February 1901, after a short illness, in his seventy-first year.
Ellis had a wide circle of literary and artistic friends. Among other associates were A. C. Swinburne, Edward Burne-Jones and John Ruskin, whose Stray Letters to a London Bibliopole were addressed to Ellis and republished by him (1892)—Ruskin called him "Papa Ellis".
lieutenant was in 1864 that Morris was first introduced by Swinburne to Ellis, and Ellis was one of the poet"s executors.
