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.
When the then Bishop of Sierra Leone became Chaplain General to the British Forces in November 1901, Elwin was appointed his successor.
[2] In March 1902 he received the degree Doctor of Divinity (Honoris causa) from the University of Oxford,[3] and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute.
[4] 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.