Born October 18, 1883. June 22, 1902. Died August 24, 1945. Founding Member of Alpha Chapter. Grand Princeps, 1903-1904. Exalted Chapter from April 24, 1926. Prominent Journalist in New York City. Episcopalian Minister. Chairman of the General Synod of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Dean of Christ Church Cathedral. Radio Preacher. Who’s Who in America. Who Was Who.
The Very Rev. Percy Tom Edrop was born in Birmingham, England, on October 18, 1883, and moved to the United States with his family in 1895, at the age of 12. He attended Boys High School in Brooklyn, but left during his Junior Year (shortly after helping to found Omega Gamma Delta) to look for employment because of the serious illness of his father, George. In 1903-1904 he was the first Grand Princeps of Omega (as well as Princeps of Alpha) and was elected by the Executive Council to be one of the initial members of the Exalted Chapter in April 1926.
While at Boys he had been school correspondent for the New York Journaland soon found work as cub reporter, reporter, then Brooklyn Editor and finally as City Editor of the New York American newspaper. In March 1904, he also began studying for the ministry of the Reformed Episcopal Church and was ordained as Deacon in 1907. From 1910 to 1915 he was unsalaried Rector of the Church of the Reconciliation in Brooklyn, moving on to become a chaplain in the New York National Guard in 1916, in the run-up to World War I.
Honorary Member of Omega), to become Managing Editor of Trench and Camp, a predecessor publication to the WW I version of Stars and Stripes. The collected editorials of Rev. Edrop, Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman (famed editor of the Richmond Times, biographer of Lee and Washington and author of Lee’s Lieutenants, and several others were later published in the book “Marching Into the Dawn. When he came back at the end of the war, he initially returned to the New York American and then moved on to the editorial board of the more prestigious New York Herald Tribune.
Rev. Edrop also returned at the same time to the active ministry, receiving his Doctor of Divinity degree on May 2, 1918, from the Reformed Episcopal Seminary of Philadelphia. During the war he had served as Secretary of the General Wartime Commission of the Reformed Episcopal Church. In November 1919, he was selected as Rector of the First Reformed Episcopal Church of New York and later served as vice chairman of New Yorks Central Ministers League. While at First Reformed, he arranged the move to its current location.
In 1923, Rev. Edrop switched denominations from Reformed Episcopal to Protestant Episcopal and was assigned to Boston as Assistant Minister of Emmanuel Church. During the next three years he was ordained again as Deacon and then Priest by the Episcopal Church and moved on to being Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Belmont, Massachusetts. In 1929 he was named as Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, chief assistant to Springfield Bishop Thomas F. Davies.
During his period in Massachusetts, Brother Edrop served as Grand
International College, served as Religion Editor of the Boston Herald, was a trustee of Wilbraham Academy, Five Cents Savings Bank, Doane Orphanage and the Springfield Home for Aged Men.
Brother Edrop died of a heart condition at the relatively young age of 61, on August 24, 1945. During his lifetime, his biography was carried in Who’s Who in America and now appears in Who Was Who.