Edward Downes Law, 5th Baron Ellenborough

Commander Edward Downes Law, 5th Baron Ellenborough (9 May 1841 – 9 December 1915), was a British Royal Navy officer and member of the House of Lords.

Naval career

Law was educated at Charterhouse and entered the Royal Navy in 1854 aged just 13.

Law was a naval cadet with HMS Colossus, serving in the Baltic during the Crimean War in 1855 and was awarded the Baltic Medal. He became a sub-lieutenant in 1860 and a lieutenant in 1861, and 1867 he passed as an interpreter in French. During the American Civil War, he was serving on the North America and West Indies Station. He transferred to the frigate HMS Highflyer, and was with her in China during the Second Opium War (1859–1861) and was awarded the Second China War Medal. In 1873, he was lieutenant commanding HMS Coquette, and saw service during the Third Anglo-Ashanti War and was awarded the Ashanti Medal. He retired as commander later in 1873.

Law gave some reminiscences of his early life with the Royal Navy in a speech in the House of Lords on the second reading of the Naval Prize Bill in December, 1911 "At the age of 14, an age at which the international lawyers were making Latin verses with the aid of a 'gradus', or studying compulsory Greek, I sat on board the Duke of Wellington, the Dreadnought of the day, flagship in the Baltic, in obedience to signal, for the purpose of transcribing Admiral Dundas's orders for blockading part of the Baltic coasts. In 1857, at the age of 16, I was up the Canton River when some law court at Hong Kong endeavoured to interfere with the proceedings of a captain of Marines, who, while in command of the Macao Fort, near Canton, had captured some junks. The admiral, Sir Michael Seymour, soon put that court into its proper place, and, acting on the maxim 'inter arma silent leges' promptly proclaimed a blockade of the Canton River and allowed no person to enter it without a naval permit.

Baron Ellenborough

Law succeeded to the peerage on the death of his cousin, Charles Towry-Law, 4th Baron Ellenborough, in June 1902. He took his seat in the House of Lords on 29 July 1902.

Family

Lord Ellenborough married Hermione Octavia Courtenay Schenley in 1906 and they lived at Windlesham Court in Surrey. He died in 1915 and was succeeded by his brother Cecil Law, 6th Baron Ellenborough.

Ancestry