Elizee De Garis

Who was Elizee De Garis?

Elisha Clement "Elizee" De Garis was an Australian irrigationist.

De Garis was born at Saint Martin in Guernsey in the Channel Islands to carpenter Elisha De Garis and Mary, née Roberts. In 1854 the De Garises migrated to Australia, settling in Adelaide and then Naracoorte. The young Elisha attended the Collegiate School of St Peter before moving to Melbourne in 1872 to study architecture. Ordained in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1880, he married Elizabeth Buncle on 2 February 1881 and was formally ordained as a minister in 1882 for Durham Ox and Kerang. He became known as a supporter of Hugh McColl's irrigation schemes and was appointed irrigation correspondent for the Melbourne Daily Telegraph; he was appointed inaugural chairman of the Tragowel Plains Irrigation and Water Supply Trust and also served as chairman of the Central Irrigation League, editing the Australian Irrigationist and founding the Associated Australian Yeomanry.

In 1888, De Garis was a commissioner of the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition, having formally renounced the cloth in 1887.