chiefly owing to his assuming the command at an important crisis during the battle of Kirkee.
The peshwa being driven from his throne, his territories were annexed to the British dominions, and Elphinstone was nominated commissioner to administer them. He discharged the responsible task with rare judgment and ability. In 1819 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Bombay and held this post till 1827, his principal achievement being the compilation of the “Elphinstone code.” He may fairly be regarded as the founder of the system of state education in India, and he probably did more than any other Indian administrator to further every likely scheme for the promotion of native education. His connexion with the Bombay presidency was appropriately commemorated in the endowment of the Elphinstone College by the native communities, and in the erection of a marble statue by the European inhabitants.
Returning to England in 1829, after an interval of two years’ travel, Elphinstone retained in his retirement and enfeebled health an important influence on public affairs. He twice refused the offer of the governor-generalship of India. Long before his return he had made his reputation as an author by his Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and its Dependencies in Persia and India (1815). Soon after his arrival in England he commenced the preparation of a work of wider scope, a history of India, which was published in 1841. It embraces the Hindu and Mahommedan periods, and is still a work of high authority. He died on the 20th of November 1859.
See J. S. Cotton, Mountstuart Elphinstone (“Rulers of India” series), (1892); T. E. Colebrooke, Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone (1884); and G. W. Forrest, Official Writings of Mountstuart Elphinstone (1884).
ELPHINSTONE, WILLIAM (1431–1514), Scottish statesman
and prelate, founder of the university of Aberdeen, was born
in Glasgow, and educated at the university of his native city,
taking the degree of M.A. in 1452. After practising for a short
time as a lawyer in the church courts, he was ordained priest,
becoming rector of St Michael’s church, Trongate, Glasgow, in
1465. Four years later he went to continue his studies at the
university of Paris, where he became reader in canon law, and
then, proceeding to Orleans, became lecturer in the university
there. Before 1474 he had returned to Scotland, and was made
rector of the university, and official of the see of Glasgow.
Further promotion followed, but soon more important duties
were entrusted to Elphinstone, who was made bishop of Ross
in 1481. He was a member of the Scots parliament, and was
sent by King James III. on diplomatic errands to Louis XI.
of France, and to Edward IV. of England; in 1483 he was
appointed bishop of Aberdeen, although his consecration was
delayed for four years; and he was sent on missions to England,
both before and after the death of Richard III. in 1485. Although
he attended the meetings of parliament with great regularity
he did not neglect his episcopal duties, and the fabric of the
cathedral of Aberdeen owes much to his care. Early in 1488
the bishop was made lord high chancellor, but on the king’s
death in the following June he vacated this office, and retired to
Aberdeen. As a diplomatist of repute, however, his services
were quickly required by the new king, James IV., in whose
interests he visited the kings of England and France, and the
German king, Maximilian I. Having been made keeper of the
privy seal in 1492, and having arranged a dispute between the
Scotch and the Dutch, the bishop’s concluding years were mainly
spent in the foundation of the university of Aberdeen. The
papal bull for this purpose was obtained in 1494, and the royal
charter which made old Aberdeen the seat of a university is
dated 1498. A small endowment was provided by the king,
and the university, modelled on that of Paris and intended
principally to be a school of law, soon became the most famous
and popular of the Scots seats of learning, a result which was
largely due to the wide experience and ripe wisdom of Elphinstone
and of his friend, Hector Boece, the first rector. The building
of the college of the Holy Virgin in Nativity, now King’s College,
was completed in 1506, and the bishop also rebuilt the choir of
his cathedral, and built a bridge over the Dee. Continuing to
participate in public affairs he opposed the policy of hostility
towards England which led to the disaster at Flodden in
September 1513, and died in Edinburgh on the 25th of October
1514. Elphinstone was partly responsible for the introduction
of printing into Scotland, and for the production of the Breviarium
Aberdonense. He may have written some of the lives in this
collection, and gathered together materials concerning the
history of Scotland; but he did not, as some have thought,
continue the Scotichronicon, nor did he write the Lives of Scottish
Saints.
See Hector Boece, Murthlacensium et Aberdonensium episcoporum vitae, edited and translated by J. Moir (Aberdeen, 1894); Fasti Aberdonenses, edited by C. Innes (Aberdeen, 1854); and A. Gardyne, Theatre of Scottish Worthies and Lyf of W. Elphinston, edited by D. Laing (Aberdeen, 1878).
EL RENO, a city and the county-seat of Canadian county,
Oklahoma, U.S.A., on the N. fork of the Canadian river, about
26 m. W. of Oklahoma City. Pop. (1890) 285; (1900) 3383;
(1907) 5370 (401 were of negro descent and 7 were Indians);
(1910) 7872. It is served by the Chicago, Rock Island &
Pacific, the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf (owned by the Chicago,
Rock Island & Pacific), and the St Louis, El Reno & Western
railways, the last extending from El Reno to Guthrie. El Reno
lies on the rolling prairie lands, about 1360 ft. above the sea, in
an Indian corn, wheat, oats and cotton-producing and dairying
region, and has a large grain elevator, a cotton compress, and
various manufacturing establishments, among the products
being flour, canned goods and crockery. El Reno has a Carnegie
library, and within the city’s limits is Bellamy’s Lake (180 acres),
a favourite resort. Near the city is a Government boarding
school for the Indians of the Cheyenne and the Arapahoe Reservation.
Fort Reno, a U.S. military post, was established near
El Reno in 1876, and in 1908 became a supply depot of the
quartermaster’s department under the name of “Fort Reno
Remount Depot.” The first settlement here, apart from the
fort, was made in the autumn of 1889; in 1892 El Reno received
a city charter.
ELSFLETH, a maritime town of Germany, in the grand-duchy
of Oldenburg, in a fertile district at the confluence of
the Hunte with the Weser, on the railway Hude-Nordenham.
Pop. 2000. It has an Evangelical church, a school of navigation,
a harbour and docks. It has considerable trade in corn and
timber and is one of the centres of the North Sea herring fishery.
ELSINORE (Dan. Helsingör), a seaport of Denmark in the
amt (county) of Frederiksborg, on the east coast of the island
of Zealand, 28 m. N. of Copenhagen by rail. Pop. (1901) 13,902.
It stands at the narrowest part of the Sound, opposite the
Swedish town of Helsingborg, 3 m. distant. Communication
is maintained by means of a steam ferry. Its harbour admits
vessels of 20 ft. draught, and the roadstead affords excellent
anchorage. There are shipbuilding yards, with foundry, engineering
shops, &c.; the chief export is agricultural produce; imports,
iron, coal, cereals and yarn. Helsingör received town-privileges
in 1425. In 1522 it was taken and burnt by Lübeck, but in
1535 was retaken by Christian II. It is celebrated as the Elsinore
of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Hamlet, and was the birthplace
of Saxo Grammaticus, from whose history the story of Hamlet
is derived. A pile of rocks surrounded by trees is shown as the
grave of Hamlet, and Ophelia’s brook is also pointed out, but
both are, of course, inventions. On a tongue of land east of the
town stands the castle of Kronberg or Kronenberg, a magnificent,
solid and venerable Gothic structure built by Frederick II.
towards the end of the 16th century, and extensively restored
by Christian IV. after a fire in 1637. It was taken by the Swedes
in 1658, but its possession was again given up to the Danes in
1660. From its turrets, one of which serves as a lighthouse,
there are fine views of the straits and of the neighbouring
countries. The Flag Battery is the “platform before the castle”
where the ghost appears in Hamlet. Within it the principal
object of interest is the apartment in which Matilda, queen of
Christian VII. and sister of George III. of England, was imprisoned
before she was taken to Hanover. The chapel contains
fine wood-carving of the 17th century. North-west of the town
