ELKINGTON, GEORGE RICHARDS (1801-1865), founder of the electroplating industry in England, was born in Birmingham on the 17th of October 1801, the son of a spectacle manufacturer. Apprenticed to his uncles, silver platers in Birmingham, he became, on their death, sole proprietor of the business, but subsequently took his cousin, Henry Elkington, into partnership. The science of electrometallurgy was then in its infancy, but the Elkingtons were quick to recognize its possibilities. They had already taken out certain patents for the application of electricity to metals when, in 1840, John Wright, a Birmingham surgeon, discovered the valuable properties of a solution of cyanide of silver in cyanide of potassium for electroplating purposes. The Elkingtons purchased and patented Wright’s process, subsequently acquiring the rights of other processes and improvements. Large new works for electroplating and electrogilding were opened in Birmingham in 1841, and in the following year Josiah Mason became a partner in the firm. George Richards Elkington died on the 22nd of September 1865, and Henry Elkington on the 26th of October 1852.
ELLA, or Ælla, the name of three Anglo-Saxon kings.
Ella (d. c. 514), king of the South Saxons and founder of the kingdom of Sussex, was a Saxon ealdorman, who landed near Arundel in Sussex with his three sons in 477. Defeating the Britons, who were driven into the forest of Andredsweald, Ella and his followers established themselves along the south coast, although their progress was slow and difficult. However, in 491, strengthened by the arrival of fresh bands of immigrants, they captured the Roman city of Anderida and “slew all that were therein.” Ella, who is reckoned as the first Bretwalda, then became king of the South Saxons, and, when he died about 514, he was succeeded by his son Cissa.
Ella (d. 588), king of the Deirans, was the son of an ealdorman named Iffa, and became the first king of Deira when, in 559, the Deirans separated themselves from the neighbouring kingdom of Bernicia. The English slaves, who aroused the interest of Pope Gregory I. at Rome, were subjects of Ella, and on this occasion the pope, punning the name of their king, suggested that “Alleluia” should be sung in his land. When Ella died in 588 Deira was conquered by Bernicia. One of his sons was Edwin, afterwards king of the Northumbrians.
Ella (d. 867), king of the Northumbrians, became king about 862 on the deposition of Osbert, although he was not of royal birth. Afterwards he became reconciled with Osbert, and together they attacked the Danes, who had invaded Northumbria, and drove them into York. Rallying, however, the Danes defeated the Northumbrians, and in the encounter both Ella and Osbert were slain. In certain legends Ella is represented as having brought about the Danish invasion of Northumbria by cruel and unjust actions.
See The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1892-1899); Bede, Historiae ecclesiasticae, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, edited by T. Arnold, Rolls Series (London, 1879); Asser, De rebus gestis Aelfredi, edited by W.H. Stevenson (Oxford, 1904); J.R. Green, The Making of England (London, 1897), and the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. i. (London, 1895).
ELLAND, an urban district in the Elland parliamentary division of Yorkshire, England, on the Calder, 2½ m. S. of Halifax by the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 10,412. The church of St Mary is Decorated and Perpendicular. Cotton-mills, woollen-factories, ironworks, flagstone quarries at Elland Edge, and fire-clay works employ the industrial population. Elland Hall, though almost rebuilt, retains the recollection of a remarkable family feud between the Ellands and the Beaumonts of Crosland Hall, the site of which may be traced in the vicinity. A nephew of Sir John Elland, in 1342, met death at the hands of a relative of the Beaumonts upon whom Sir John took vengeance, as also upon the heads of the allied houses of Lockwood and Quarmby. The children of these families were educated in the hope of avenging their parents, and after many years succeeded in doing so, cutting off Sir John Elland and his heir.