Elliott was born in
Bedford on 25 May 1871 to William Elliott, an Inland Revenue officer, and his wife Elizabeth (née Jones). He was educated at
Bedford Modern School. From 1896, Elliott co-owned a foundry business (Robbins & Co.) in
Dudley, West Midlands with his brother William. The business specialised in making fire grates and Elliott and his brother filed three
patent applications regarding the improvement of the domestic fire grate. However, Elliott's main interest was
ornithology. Elliott published his first book
The Vertebrate Fauna of Bedfordshire at his own expense in 1901. In their book,
The Birds of Bedfordshire (1991), Paul Trodd and David Kramer stated that "the works of Jannion Steele Elliott were our base reference and it is only now that we can appreciate the importance of his writings when comparing the status of species than with those of today." Elliott developed a large collection of the local birds of
Bedfordshire which he gave to the Pritchard Museum of
Bedford Modern School which was later to become a key component of the
Bedford Museum. His collection was later transferred to the
Luton Museum. Of Elliott, the British ornithologist
Bruce Campbell stated: "On June 4th, 1903, Jannion Steele-Elliott, the great Bedfordshire naturalist and his friend Ronald Bruce Campbell, my father, spent the day at
Southill Park and found nests with eggs of 27 different species of bird, a feat which can have few parallels in British field ornithology." Elliott was a
Tring correspondent (1899–1942) and records of his
ornithological work are kept in the archives of the
Natural History Museum. Elliott married firstly, in 1898, Caroline Emma Thompson, with whom he had a son (William Jannion, 1900–1929) and daughter (Marjory Caroline, born 1899); Caroline died in 1909. On 30 July 1925, Elliott married secondly Doris Amie, daughter of John Eccleston Sheldon, of Moorcroft,
Barnt Green, Worcestershire, and former wife of Captain Mervyn Edward John Wingfield-Stratford (1883–1922), of the
Worcester Regiment. Captain Mervyn Wingfield-Stratford was the first cousin of Georgina Grace Ida Wingfield-Stratford, wife of Elliott's son, William; the Wingfield-Stratfords descended from the politicians
Richard Wingfield, 3rd Viscount Powerscourt and
John Stratford, 1st Earl of Aldborough. Their daughter, Petronilla, married Peter Trustram Eve, son of the
1st Baron Silsoe. Elliott had lived in
Clent, south of the foundry in Dudley, until 1902. That year, he moved his family west when he purchased the
Elizabethan era building, Dowles Manor, near the confluence of
Dowles Brook into the
River Severn, at the eastern edge of the
Wyre Forest. By the time of his death, in 1942, he had bought up the surrounding land, piecemeal, until he owned the portion of the valley, formed by the Dowles Brook, surrounding Dowles Manor; he maintained this land as a nature reserve. At Dowles Manor, he entertained friends and fellow naturalists including
Charles Oldham,
Thomas Coward and
Herbert Forrest. He died on 27 March 1942, when visiting his brother at
Kerry,
Montgomeryshire. == Bibliography ==