Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/158

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148
ELL–ELL

Board of Control under Lord Derby, in 1858, he fell into his old impetuosity, by censuring Canning for the con- fiscation of Oudh, which would have been communistic if it had not proved nominal, and, so far, justified by political reasons. To save the Cabinet he 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 the 8th June 1852. Paying off his old score against the East India Company, he then advocated the abolition of the Court of Directors as a governing body, the opening of the Civil Service to the army, the transference of the government to the Crown, and the appointment 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, now earl of Derby, in 1858, so closely even in details, that Lord Ellenborough must be pronounced the author, for good or evil, of the present home constitution of the Government of India. After his farewell to otficial life, the dash and the brilliancy of the earl of Ellenborough found a legitimate ex- pression in his vigilant criticisms of Indian, and his broad and eloquent expositions of European, politics in the House of Lords. To the nation he bequeathed, as his only defence, the publication of his letters already referred to, “ without introduction or comment.” He died at his Seat, South-am House, near Cheltenham, on the 22d December 1871, at the age of eighty-one. The barony reverted to his nephew, the earldom becoming extinct. One of the most able, and certainly the most erratic, of all the governors- general, he survived six of his successors. In many features

of his character he resembled his distinguished father.


For the vexed facts of Ellenboroughs career, and his always forcibly expressed opinions, see IIistory of the Indian Administra- tion (Bentley, 1874), edited by Lord Colchcster; Jlimltcs QfEuidcnce taken before the Select Committee on Indian Territories, June 1852 ; volume i. of the Calcutta Review; the Friend of India, during the years 1842—45; and a curious little attack on his Gwalior policy by the Maharaja’s superintcmling surgeon, John Hope, The House of Seinded: A Sketch (Longmans, 1863). General Colin Maekcnzie’s pamphlets and Sir John Kaye's writings throw further light on the treatment of the captives. The numerous books by and against Sir Charles Napier, 011 the conquest of Sind, should be consulted.

(g. sm.)

ELLESMERE, Francis Egerton, First Earl of (1800–1857), born in London on the 1st January 1800, was the second son of the first duke of Sutherland. He was known by his patronymic as Lord Francis LeveSon Gower until 1833, when he assumed the surname of Egerton alone, having succeeded on the death of his fathcr to the estates which the latter inherited from the duke of Bridgewater. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he entered parliament soon after attaining his majority as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingly, in Surrey. He after- wards sat for Sutherlandshire and for South Lancashire, which he represented when he was elevated to the peerage as Earl of Ellesmere and Viscount Brackley in 1846. In politics he was a moderate Conservative of independent views, as was shown by his supporting the proposal for establishing the university of London, by his making and carrying a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and by his advocating free trade long before Sir Robert Peel yielded on the question. Appointed a lord of the treasury in 1827, he held the post of chief secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became secretary-at-war. Before the close of the year the administration was broken up, and Lord Francis Leveson Gower did not again hold office. Though he filled a place of some prominence in the political world, his claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to litera- ture and the fine arts. Ere he was twenty he priuted for private circulation a volume of poems, which he followed up after a short interval by the publication of a very creditable translation of Goethe’s Faust, one of the earliest that appeared in England. It was accompanied by some happy translations of German lyrics and a few original poems. In 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in his very agreeably written JIed-iterranean Sketches (1843), and in the notes to a poem entitled The Pilgrimage. He published several other works in prose and verse, all dis- playing a fine literary taste. His Contributions to the Quarterly Review were published in a collected form after his death. His literary reputation secured for him the position of rector of Aberdeen University in 1841. Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists. To the splendid collection of pictures which he inherited from the duke of Bridgewater he made numerous additions which greatly enriched it, and he built for it a noble gallery to which the public were allowed free access. His benelovence, while unobtrusive, was unfailing, and his manner had the charm of dignified and yet unaffected courtesy. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1853 he visited the United States as British commissioner to the Great Exhibition at New York. In 1855 he was made a K.G. He was one of the trustees of the National Gallery at the time of his death, which occurred on the 18th February 1857.

ELLICHPUR (with Melghát), a district of British India, in the connnissionership of East Berar, within the Hyderabad Assigned Districts, lies between 20° 51’ and 21° 46’ N. lat. and 76° 40' and 78° 30' long. It is bounded on the N. by the Tapti river and the Betul and Chindwara districts of the Central Provinces, on the E. by the \Vardha river, on the S. by the Amraoti district, and on the \V. by the Nimar and Akola districts. Together with )lelghat, it now comprises an area of “2772 square miles, with a population of 344,358, of whom nine-tenths are Hindus. The entire northern half of the district consists of a succession of hills and valleys known as the Melglnit or Gawilgarh hills, a section of the Stitpura Mountains. The main ridge or watershed of the Sz’itpuras runs through the district from east to west, attaining its greatest eleva- tion at Bail-at, 3987 feet above sea-level. The southern portion of the district is flat, and drained by numerous small streams flowing into the Wardha and I’urna rivers. The only metalled road is that from Amraoti to Ellichpur; but there are several other country roads, and fair weather tracks from village to village passable for eight months in the year. In the hill country, the chief passes are Mallara on the east and Dulghat and Bingara on the west, none of which, however, are practicable for wheeled vehicles. The principal agricultural products are rice and wheat (of excellent quality), gram, pulses, and oilseeds, and these, together with ghi and forest timber, comprise the chief exports of the district. The imports are mainly English and country cloth, iron and copper utensils, tobacco, salt, sugar, &c. Ellichpur, the principal town, contains a population of 27,782. It was formerly the capital of the Mahometan governors of the Deccan, and a place of considerable importance.

ELLIOTSON, Dr John, was born at, Southwark,

London, towards the end of the last century. He studied medicine first at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge, in both which places he took the degree of M.D., and sub- sequently at the Borough Hospitals in London. In 1817 he obtained the post of assistant physician, and six years later that of physician at St Thomas’s Hospital. He there introduced clinical lecturing, a practice which, except at

the London Hospital, was at the time nowhere in vogue in