ELLERY, WILLIAM (1727 1820)

This article appears in Volume V09, Page 291 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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ELLERY, WILLIAM (1727 1820) , American politician, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on the 22nd of December 1727. He graduated from Harvard in 1747, engaged in trade, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1770. He was a member of the Rhode Island committee of safety in 17751776, and was a delegate in Congress in 17761781 and again in 17831785. Just after his first election to Congress, he was placed on the important marine committee, and he was made a member of the board of admiralty when it was established in 1779. In April 1786 he was elected

commissioner

COMMISSIONER

of the continental

loan

LOAN (adapted from the Scandinavian form of a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Swed. Mn, Icel. lan, Dut. leen; the O.E. laen appears in " lend," the ultimate source is seen in the root of Gr. Xeiaecv and Lat. linquere, to leave)

office for the state of Rhode Island and from 1790 until his death at Newport, on the 15th of February 182o, he was collector of the customs for the

district

DISTRICT

of Newport.
See Edward T. Channing, " Life of William Ellery," in vol. 6 of Jared Sparks's American Biography (Boston and London, 1836). ELLESMERE, FRANCIS EGERTON, 1ST

EARL

EARL

OF (18001857), born in London on the 1st of January "Soo, was the second son of the 1st duke of

Sutherland

SUTHERLAND, EARLS AND DUKES OF

. 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 father 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 afterwards sat for

Sutherlandshire

SUTHERLANDSHIRE

and for South Lancashire, which he represented when he was elevated to the peerage as

earl

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

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became secretary-at-war for a short time. His claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to literature and the fine arts. Before he was twenty he printed for private circulation a volume of poems, which he followed up after a short interval by the publication of a translation of Goethe's Faust, one of the earliest that appeared in England, with some translations of German lyrics and a few

original

ORIGINAL

poems. In 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in his very agreeably written Mediterranean Sketches (1843), and in the notes to a poem entitled The

Pilgrimage

PILGRIMAGE (Fr. pelerinage, Lat. peregrinatio)

. He published several other works in prose and verse, all displaying a fine literary taste. His literary reputation
secured for him the position of

rector

RECTOR (Lat. for " ruler," " guide," &c., from regere, " rule ")

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 his great-uncle, the 3rd duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a noble gallery to which the public were allowed free access. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society, and he was a trustee of the National Gallery. He died on the 18th of February 1857. He was succeeded by his son (1823-1862) as 2nd earl, and his grandson (b. 184.7) as 3rd earl.

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