Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/George James Welbore Agar Ellis, Baron Dover

DOVER, George James Welbore Agar Ellis, Baron (1797–1833), born on the 14th January 1797, was the eldest son of the second Viscount Clifden. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1818 he was returned to Parliament as member for Heytesbury. He afterwards represented Seaford (1820), Ludgershall (1826), and Oakhampton (1830). In party politics he took little interest; but he was a zealous and enlightened advocate in Parliament and elsewhere of state encouragement being given to the cause of literature and the fine arts. In 1824 he was the leading promoter of the grant of £57,000 for the purchase of Mr Angerstein's collection of pictures, which formed the foundation of the National Gallery. On the formation of Lord Grey's administration, in November 1830, he was appointed chief commissioner of woods and forests. The post was one for which his tastes well fitted him, but he was compelled by delicate health to resign it after two months' occupancy. In June 1831, during the lifetime of his father, he was raised to the House of Lords under the title of Baron Dover. His services to the cause of learning and the fine arts, as well as his own distinction as an author, led in 1832 to his election to the presidency of the Royal Society of Literature. He died on the 10th July 1833. Lord Dover's literary works were chiefly historical, and included The True History of the Iron Mask, extracted from Documents in the French Archives (1826), Historical Inquiries respecting the Character of Clarendon (1827), and a Life of Frederick the Great (1831). He also edited the Ellis Correspondence and Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann. He left in manuscript a volume written for the instruction of his son, which was published posthumously under the title Lives of the Most Eminent Sovereigns of Modern Europe. A fourth edition of this work appeared in 1853.