Edmund Henry Elwin was born on 18 September 1871 and educated at Dover College and Merton College Oxford where he gained a third class degree in Theology. Later he studied at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, a theological training college in the Evangelical tradition.
After his curacy in Oxford, Edmund Elwin became a missionary in Sierra Leone and soon became Vice Principal of Fourah Bay College which was affiliated to Durham University. He eventually became Principal and Secretary of the Sierra Leone Mission; when the then Bishop of Sierra Leone became Chaplain General to the British Forces, Elwin was appointed his successor, being consecrated Bishop on 25 January 1902.
Edmund Elwin died of Yellow Fever in Sierra Leone on 10 November 1909, a few weeks before being due to return to England as the appointed Bishop of Bristol. He was the father of Verrier Elwin.