Ellis was born on 20 August 1860 in Pitsmoor, Sheffield, Yorkshire. He was the son of John Devonshire Ellis (1824–1906) and, his wife, Elizabeth Bourne. In 1889 Ellis married Lucy Rimington, the daughter of Francis William Tetley who was a director of Joshua Tetley & Son, the brewery in Leeds.
Ellis was a steel maker and in 1914 was elected Master Cutler, the head of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire and ambassador of industry for Sheffield. His tenure as Master Cutler, a position which usually changes each year, lasted until 1918 due to the outbreak of the First World War. In 1918 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering by the University of Sheffield.
Ellis was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers for the November 1925 to November 1926 session.
On 28 June 1926 he was appointed by the Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, 1st Viscount Brentford, to sit on a commission which had been established to enquire into the conditions of mining and drainage in the county borough Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The commission was a tribunal of inquiry as established by the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Acting of 1921 and was to establish what effect mining had had on drainage in the area, what the current efficiency of land drainage systems was and how best to manage the issue in the future.
Ellis died on 4 July 1945.
