ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, EARL OF (1790 1871), the eldest son of the 1st Lord Ellenborough, was born on Sept. 8, 1790. He was educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge. He represented the subsequently disfranchised bor ough of St. Michael's Cornwall, in the House of Commons, until the death of his father in 1818 gave him a seat in the House of Lords. He was twice married; his only child died young; his second wife was divorced by act of parliament in 1830. Ellen borough was lord privy seal (1828) and member of the board of control (1828-3o). He had just returned to the board of control in 1841 when he was appointed by the court of directors of the East India Company to succeed Lord Auckland as governor general of India.
India.—Ellenborough went to India in order "to restore peace to Asia," but the whole term of his office was occupied in war. On his arrival he was greeted by news of the massacre of Kabul, and the sieges of Ghazni and Jalalabad, while the sepoys of Madras were on the verge of open mutiny. In his proclamation of March 15, 1842, as in his memorandum for the queen dated the 18th, he stated the duty of first inflicting some signal and decisive blow on the Afghans, and then leaving them to govern themselves under the sovereign of their own choice. Unhappily, when he left his council for upper India, and learned the trifling failure of General England, he instructed Pollock and Nott, who were advancing triumphantly with their avenging columns to rescue the British captives, to fall back. The army proved true to the governor-general's earlier proclamation rather than to his later fears; the hostages were rescued, the scene of Sir Alexander Burnes's murder in the heart of Kabul was burned down. Dost Mahommed was quietly dismissed from a prison in Calcutta to the throne in the Bala Hissar, and Ellenborough presided over the painting of the elephants for an unprecedented military spec tacle at Ferozepur, on the south bank of the Sutlej. The farce of the recovery of the sandalwood gates of the Hindu temple of Somnath from the Afghans followed. The gates, conveyed to Agra in a triumphal car, were found to be a fraudulent imitation. The Somnath proclamation made Ellenborough ridiculous.
Hardly had Ellenborough issued his medal with the legend "Pax Asiae Restituta" when he was at war with the amirs of Sind. The tributary amirs had on the whole been faithful, for Major (afterwards Sir James) Outram controlled them. But he had reported the opposition of a few, and Ellenborough ordered an inquiry. His instructions were admirable, in equity as well as energy, and if Outram had been left to carry them out all would have been well. But the duty was entrusted to Sir Charles Napier, with full political as well as military powers. Mir Ali Morad in trigued with both sides; he betrayed the amirs on the one hand, while he deluded Napier to their destruction on the other. Ellen borough was led on till events were beyond his control, and his own just and merciful instructions were forgotten. Napier admitted that the seizure of Sind was an "advantageous, useful and humane piece of rascality." The battles of Meeanee and Hyderabad followed; and the Indus became a British river from Karachi to Multan.
On the north the disordered kingdom of the Sikhs was threaten ing the frontier. In Gwalior to the south, the feudatory Mahratta State, there were a large mutinous army, a Ranee only 12 years of age, an adopted chief of eight, and factions in the council of ministers. These conditions brought Gwalior to the verge of civil war. Ellenborough reviewed the danger in the minute of Nov. 1, 1845, and told Sir Hugh Gough to advance. Further treachery and military licence rendered the battles of Maharajpur and Punniar, f ought on the same day, inevitable though they were, a surprise to the combatants. The treaty that followed was merciful and wise. The pacification of Gwalior also had its effect beyond the Sutlej, where anarchy was restrained for yet another year, and the work of civilization was left to Ellen borough's two successors. But by this time the patience of the directors was exhausted. They had no control over Ellenborough's policy; his despatches to them were haughty and disrespectful; and in June 1844 they recalled him.
England.—On his return to England Ellenborough was created an earl and received the thanks of parliament ; but his administra tion was attacked in parliament, though it was successfully vindi cated by Peel and Wellington. When Peel's cabinet was reconsti tuted in 1846 Ellenborough became first lord of the admiralty. In 1858 he took office under Lord Derby as president of the board of control, for the fourth time. There he drafted the new scheme for the government of India which the mutiny had ren dered necessary. But he wrote a caustic despatch censuring Lord Canning for the Oudh proclamation, and allowed it to be pub lished in The Times without consulting his colleagues, who dis avowed his action. Votes of censure were announced in both Houses; and, to save the cabinet, Ellenborough resigned.
But for this act of rashness he might have enjoyed the task of carrying into effect the home constitution for the government of India which he sketched in his evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons on Indian territories on June 8, 1852.
Paying off his old score against the East India Company, he then" advocated the abolition of the court of directors as a govern ing body, the opening of the civil service to the army, the transference of the government to the Crown, and the appoint ment of a council to advise the minister who should take the place of the president of the board of control. These suggestions of 1852 were carried out by his successor Lord Stanley, afterwards earl of Derby, in 1858, so closely even in details, that Ellen borough must be pronounced the author, for good or evil, of the home constitution of the government of India. Ellenborough never held office again. He died at his seat, Southam House, near Cheltenham, on Dec. 22, 1871, when the barony reverted to his nephew Charles Edmund Law (1820-1890), the earldom becoming extinct.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select ComBibliography. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Select Com- mittee on Indian Territories, Parl. Papers vol. x. (1852) ; History of the Indian Administration under Lord Ellenborough (ed. Lord Col chester, 1874) ; India under Lord Ellenborough, March 1842–June 1844 (ed. Sir A. Law 1926). See also The Friend of India during the years 1842-45; The Calcutta Review, vol. i. (1846) ; and the numerous books by and against Sir Charles Napier, on the conquest of Sind.