ELLENBOROUGH, EARL OF. Edward Law, first earl of E., son of the first baron (many years chief-justice of the king's bench), was b. 1790; educated at Eton and at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A., 1809; succeeded his father in the barony in 1818; was lord privy seal in the duke of Wellington's administration, 1828-29; president of the board of control during the short-lived Peel aaministration of 1834-35; and appointed, on the return of sir Robert Peel in Sept., 1841, to the same office, which he relinquished a month afterwards for the post of governor-general of India. He received the tbanks.of parliament in 1843 for his " ability and judgment" in sup porting the military operations in Afghanistan. In many other respects, his Indian administration was open to censure. He was charged with reserving his favor for the military, and inflicting undeserved slights upon the civil servants of the company. He made showy progresses; addressed proclamations to the rulers and natives of India which appeared to sanction idolatry• and, finally, in his proclamation concerning the sandal-wood gates of the temple of 'Juggernaut, when brought back from Glinznee, he reached the climax of a series of extravagances, which induced the directors of the East India company to exercise a power only used in extreme cases, and to recall him. The ministry, however, stood by him, and he was created by the crown
an earl and a viscount; he also received the distinction of G.C.B. In 1846, sir R. Peel made him first lord of the admiralty, an office which he resigned in July of the same year, when the disruption of the Peel administration took place. In the Derby administration of 1858, he was again minister for India, and the author of an India bill, which failed to obtain the sanction of parliament. Having permitted a dispatch to see the light, in which he had administered a severe and caustic rebuke to viscount Canning, governor-general of India, an outcry was raised against him, which threatened the existence of the Derby government. To avert this result, lord E. resigned. He afterwards took a frequent and influential part in the debates of the upper house. He was styled, by no less a judge than M. Gnizot, "the most brilliant of the tory orators." He was twice married—first to a daughter of the marquis of Lon donderry, and second to the daughter of admiral Digby. His divorce from the latter made some noise at the time. E. died without issue, Dec. 2, 1871, when the earldom and viscounty became extinct.