Eliott emigrated to Australia, and was appointed a police magistrate at Parramatta in June 1842.

He became chief of the three commissioners of the city of Sydney in January 1842. in July 1859 was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the member for Burnett but had only served 5 months when the Colony of Queensland was created and his seat became redundant.

[3] He was then elected to the first Queensland Legislative Assembly in April 1860, as member for Wide Bay.

On the meeting of the House in May he was elected the first Speaker, and, having been thrice successively re-elected in the next three Parliaments, voluntarily retired in Nov. 1870, when he was created C.M.G.

[4] Eliott's eldest son, Gilbert William, was a police magistrate in Queensland from 1865 to 1878; and, by his marriage with Jane Penelope, daughter of Thomas Thomson, of Tasmania, had a son, Gilbert Francis Eliott, born in 1859, who was Engineer of Harbours and Rivers for Northern Queensland.