User:Icairns 2/sandbox/Peter Eliot (musician)

This article is for the Australian company director, genealogist and musician.

Peter Eliot (1945-) is an Australian company director, genealogist and musician, based in the Sydney area.

Early life
Peter Eliot was born 1945 in Holborn, London, the second of 3 brothers, to Percival Lionel Eliot (1888-1961) and his second wife, Annie nee Weintraub (1921-2013). His parents separated shortly afterwards, and Peter was sent to the Beechholme children's home in Banstead, Surrey. In 1960, he returned home to live with his father during the last year of his father's life. Eliot started working with electrical and electronic engineering in Radio and TV around Central London.

Electrical and electronics career
Having met and married his wife, Sue, in London, the Eliots migrated to Sydney, Australia where they started a family and founded an electrical company. This company flourished, with Eliot receiving various management awards in the 1980s for his success.

Family history
In the 1990s, Eliot decided to investigate the Eliot family history stories that his father had passed down to him, including assertions of illustrious ancestors. Similar stories had also been received by Eliot's niece - by his father's first family. Together they investigated their early family history. These ancestors would be later known as the Eliot military family, an illegitimate branch of the Earls of St Germans, whose family surname is also Eliot. The military family had also married into both the Eliotts of Stobs and the Elliots of Minto - offshoots of the Clan Eliott of Scotland. As a result, this military family "connected" the three main branches of the surnames Eliot, Eliott, Elliot and their variants.

In the process of contacting distant relatives for further information, it became apparent that the combined family papers of General Granville Elliott and his son Francis Perceval Eliot had been split and widely distributed over descendant branches over many years. Eliot tracked down and recovered almost all these papers, or copies thereof, effectively reconstituting much of the entire original archive. This archive had been known to previous generations as "The Eliot Archive" or the "Two Sisters' Archive" or "Jessica and Laura Eliot's Archive".

The collation and documentation of these papers led to Eliot meeting the 10th Earl of St Germans and contributing important new 18th century papers to the Madame de Graffigny correspondence at the Voltaire Foundation, at the University of Oxford and the University of Toronto.

Eliot became Secretary and later President of the Elliot Clan of Australia for several years and helped run its website and newsletters.

Musical career
Around 2010, Eliot took his lifelong involvement in guitar music and volunteered to perform as a solo Country guitar act in Old People's homes, nursing homes, RSL homes, etc. in and around the Sydney area. This late career move took off, and soon he was writing and recording his own new material. He released an album "Mixed Feelings" (2014) and numerous singles, including a Christmas song, "Giddy Up Santa" (2019).

Albums

 * Mixed feelings (2014)

Tracks
Numerous, including:
 * Giddy Up Santa (2019)

Family
Peter Eliot married Sue Braden in 1964, with two children:
 * Stuart John Eliot
 * Louise Anne Eliot

External references

 * http://www.elliotclanaustralia.org/ The Elliot Clan of Australia website