Ellenborough, Edward Law, Lord, English lawyer, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, born in 1750 at Great Salkeld, Cumberland, died in 1818. He was educated at the Charterhouse and at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and called to the Bar in 1780. Not long afterwards he took silk, and at the trial of Warren Hastings, in 1785, acted as leading counsel. The defence did not come on until the fifth year of the trial, but after eight years Hastings was acquitted and Law's success assured. In 1801 he was made Attorney-General, and in 1802 became Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and was created baron. He held the office of Chief Justice for fifteen years, resigning in 1818.
Ellenborough, Edward Law, first Earl of, son of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough (see above), born in 1790, died in 1871. He was educated at Eton and St. John's College, Cambridge, and in 1818, having succeeded his father as second baron, he entered the House of Lords. In 1818 he took office as Lord Privy Seal, and was President of the Board of Control from 1828-30, and again in 1834. In 1841 he accepted the governor-generalship of India, and arrived in Calcutta in 1842, in time to bring the Afghan War to a successful issue. The annexation of Seinde in 1843 was followed by the conquest of Gwalior, but the conduct of the Governor-General gave dissatisfaction at home, and he was recalled early in 1844. On his return, however, he was defended by Wellington, and received the thanks of Parliament, an earldom, and the Grand Cross of the Bath. He then held the post of First Lord of the Admiralty (1845-6), and was President of the Board of Control from Feb. to June, 1858. His dispatch censuring the policy of Lord Canning as Governor-General of India led to his resignation, and he never resumed office.
Ell´ice Islands, or Lagoon Islands, a group of coral islands annexed to Britain in 1892, lying north of Fiji, and extending for 360 miles north-west to south-east. The islands were discovered by Maurelle in 1781. The inhabitants are of Samoan race and language, have long been Christians, and support themselves chiefly by the coco-nut. Pop. 3084.
Ellichpur (el-ich-pör´), a town of India, in Ellichpur district, Berar, once a large and prosperous town. There is a military cantonment within two miles. Pop. 27,500.
El´licott, Right Rev. Charles John, English divine, born 1819, died in 1905. Educated at Cambridge, he was professor of divinity in King's College, London, Hulsean lecturer and Hulsean professor of divinity at Cambridge, and Dean of Exeter, and in 1863 was appointed Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. He was for eleven years chairman of the scholars engaged on the revision of the New Testament translation, and published commentaries on the Old and the New Testaments, as well as sermons, addresses, and lectures.
Elliott, Ebenezer, English poet, known as the 'Corn-law Rhymer', born in 1781 near Rotherham, Yorkshire, died in 1849. At the age of seventeen he published his first poem, The Vernal Walk, which was soon followed by others. In 1829 The Village Patriarch, the best of Elliott's longer pieces, was published. From 1831 to 1837 he carried on business as an iron merchant in Sheffield. His Corn-law Rhymes, periodically contributed to a local paper devoted to the repeal of these laws, attracted attention, and were afterwards collected and published with a longer poem entitled The Ranter. Commercial losses compelled him in 1837 to contract his business, and in 1841 he retired from it altogether. In 1850 two posthumous volumes appeared, entitled More Prose and Verse by the Corn-law Rhymer.
Ellipse´, one of the conic sections. The curve generated by a point which moves so that its distance from a fixed point bears a constant ratio (less than unity) to its distance from a fixed straight line. Kepler discovered that the paths described by the planets in their revolutions round the sun are ellipses, the sun being placed in one of the foci. To describe an ellipse: At a given distance on the surface on which the ellipse is to be described fix two pins, A and B, and pass a looped string round them. Keep the string stretched by a pencil, c, and move the pencil round, keeping the string at the same tension, then the ellipse EGFH will be described. A and B are the foci, D the centre, EF the major axis, GH the minor axis, and the fraction DA/DE the eccentricity of the ellipse. A line drawn from any point in the curve perpendicularly to the axis is an ordinate to the axis. Any straight line drawn through the centre and terminated both ways by the curve is called a diameter.
Ellipsoid, a surface bearing the same sort of relation to a spherical surface as an ellipse bears to a circle. The name is also given to the solid bounded by such a surface.