[1] John's father, David Elder (1785–1866), was a civil engineer who settled in Glasgow, and entered the shipbuilding firm of Mr. Robert Napier, the well-known shipbuilder, under whom, in 1822, he constructed the first marine engine, which was fitted up in the River Leven for the passage between Glasgow and Dumbarton.

David Elder, was the author of many inventions and improvements in the machinery of steam vessels, and to the excellence of his engines the success of the Cunard Line of steamers, in establishing regular communication between the opposite shores of the Atlantic, was mainly due.

Professor Macquorn Rankine, who has gone into all the details of the subject in his memoir of Elder, says that only one who had thoroughly studied and understood the principles of thermodynamics could have achieved this.

Of some of his improvements he gave an account in papers presented to the British Association at Leeds in 1858, Aberdeen 1859, and Oxford 1860.

In 1868, he read a paper before the United Service Institute in London on an improved form of warship, entitled 'Circular Ships of War, with immersed motive power.'

Some idea of the magnitude of his business may be formed from the fact that when in business by himself he employed four thousand men, and that from June 1868 to the end of 1869 the number of sets of engines made by him was eighteen, their aggregate horse power 6,110, the number of vessels built fourteen, their aggregate tonnage 27,027.

Isabella Elder, after her husband's death, besides adding largely to the endowment of the chair of civil engineering and applied mechanics at the University of Glasgow, also provided an endowment to create the John Elder Professorship of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at the university, and also financed the establishment of the Queen Margaret College.

The intelligent and considerate spirit in which he looked on the struggles of the working class, while at the same time fully realising both the rights and responsibilities of employers, led to the belief that in his hands the problem of the relations of capital and labour would have found a solution acceptable to all.

His death at so early an age was counted a great calamity, while the multitude that attended his funeral, and the silence of all the workshops in the neighbourhood as his body was carried to its resting-place, showed how much he was esteemed by all classes in his native city.