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.
ELLENBOROUGH, EDWARD LAW, 1ST BARON (1750-1818), English judge, was born
on the 16th of November 1750, at Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, of which
place his father, Edmund Law (1703-1787), afterwards bishop of Carlisle,
was at the time rector. Educated at the Charterhouse and at Peterhouse,
Cambridge, he passed as third wrangler, and was soon afterwards elected
to a fellowship at Trinity. In spite of his father's strong wish that he
should take orders, he chose the legal profession, and on quitting the
university was entered at Lincoln's Inn. After spending five years as a
special pleader under the bar, he was called to the bar in 1780. He
chose the northern circuit, and in a very short time obtained a
lucrative practice and a high reputation. In 1787 he was appointed
principal counsel for Warren Hastings in the celebrated impeachment
trial before the House of Lords, and the ability with which he conducted
the defence was universally recognized. He had begun his political
career as a Whig, but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution
a reason for changing sides, and became a supporter of Pitt. On the
formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed
attorney-general and shortly afterwards was returned to the House of
Commons as member for Newtown in the Isle of Wight. In 1802 he succeeded
Lord Kenyon as chief justice of the king's bench. On being raised to the
bench he was created a peer, taking his title from the village of
Ellenborough in Cumberland, where his maternal ancestors had long held a
small patrimony. In 1806, on the formation of Lord Grenville's ministry
"of all the talents," Lord Ellenborough declined the offer of the great
seal, but accepted a seat in the cabinet. His doing so while he retained
the chief justiceship was much criticized at the time, and, though not
without precedent, was open to such obvious objections on constitutional
grounds that the experiment has not since been repeated. As a judge he
had grave faults, though his decisions displayed profound legal
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