The Rt Revd Laish Boyd writes:
THE Rt Revd Michael Hartley Eldon, who died on 7 February, having been in a coma since January 2005, was the 11th bishop for the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. He was the first Bahamian to become Bishop of Nassau (& the Bahamas), a diocese created in 1861 by Queen Victoria’s letters patent.
A graduate of St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, where he took a BA in 1952, he prepared for ordination at St Stephen’s House, Oxford, and returned to the diocese in 1954 to be made deacon. He was ordained priest by the late Bishop Spence Burton of Nassau in 1955.
He served in Nassau and Grand Bahama as a parish priest, and then as Archdeacon of Grand Bahama, before his elevation to the episcopate as Suffragan Bishop of New Providence in 1971, before his translation to the diocesan see of Nassau & the Bahamas, in 1971.
During his ministry, he made great contributions as a devout parish priest who was involved in both ecclesiastical and secular education.
Because of his deep concern for the development of the spiritual, physical, and intellectual capacities of people, the Bahamas government appointed him the first chairman of the College of the Bahamas, over which he presided for 20 years. During that time, he saw the college evolve from a community-orientated institution to the threshold of becoming the University of the Bahamas.
Bishop Eldon emphasised the need to minister to the whole person, which brought about both social outreach and growth in numbers and structures in the life of the diocese. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, and the government of the Bahamas awarded him the Bahamas Order of Merit.
Bishop Eldon was truly one who walked with kings and queens without losing the common touch. He was well loved and respected by people in all walks of the national life, as he had the gift of making everyone feel special in his presence. He knew the majority of his flock, because he possessed a prodigious memory.
