Henry Keeling Ellyson
(1825-1903)
President of the Board of Trustees, Richmond College, 1886-1890
Mr. Ellyson, who never had a collegiate education, was apprenticed at age 14 as a printer in the office of the Southern Churchman. In 1841, he started a small job printing office, which soon developed into a thriving and profitable business. After the fire of 1865, he helped revive the Richmond Daily Dispatch, which became the most influential and widely circulated newspaper in Virginia, the forerunner of the Richmond Times–Dispatch. Mr. Ellyson remained in the newspaper business for the rest of his life.
Ellyson was a leading citizen of Richmond and was the leading Baptist layman of his time in Virginia. He was the first secretary of state of the State Mission Board of Virginia, an office he held for 45 years. He was secretary of the General Association of Virginia for seven years as well as a member and deacon of the Second Baptist Church for 47 years.
H.K. Ellyson was a member of the Virginia Legislature from 1854–1856, sheriff of the city of Richmond from 1857–1865, and mayor of Richmond in 1870. He was a director of the First National Bank of Richmond, the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad Company and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Ellyson was also president of the Virginia Steamboat Company and a trustee of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary as well as of Richmond Theological Institute.
Mr. Ellyson was a trustee of Richmond College from 1868–1890 and served as president of the Board from 1886–1890. He was named for another president of the Board of Trustees of Richmond College (1841), Henry Keeling, his family’s beloved pastor. Ellyson maintained a close relationship with the faculty and gave much of his time to the College.
Ellyson’s son, J. Taylor Ellyson, served as president of the Board of Trustees of Richmond College from 1908–1919.