Lord Ellenborough

Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough, later the Earl of Ellenborough, was Governor-General of India from February 1842 until the Company's Court of Directors recalled him in 1844. He is not a figure of the Panth. He appears in this record as the British ruler who faced the Lahore Darbar across the Sutlej in the years after Maharaja Ranjit Singh's death.

He was born on 8 September 1790 and reached Calcutta on 28 February 1842 to succeed Lord Auckland.

The Tripartite Treaty. He arrived to the aftermath of the Kabul disaster. In April 1842, after Sale defeated the Afghan army at Jalalabad and Pollock forced the Khyber, Ellenborough decided to end the Tripartite Treaty. He offered the Sikh government the right to occupy Jalalabad after the British withdrawal. The Encyclopaedia reads that offer as aimed at drawing Sikh troops away from Lahore and Amritsar.

Sindh. In 1843 Sir Charles Napier conquered Sindh, winning at Meeanee on 17 February and at Hyderabad on 24 March. Wikipedia says Ellenborough gave Napier full political and military powers and attributes to Napier the remark that the conquest was "a very advantageous, useful and humane piece of rascality". The Dictionary of National Biography calls the ameers' guilt doubtful. Wikipedia's account of the First Anglo-Sikh War says the annexation did not win the British respect in Punjab and increased suspicion of their motives.

The Sutlej. The Encyclopaedia says his private letters to the Duke of Wellington show that, as early as October 1843, he was discussing a military occupation of the Punjab with the Home Government. It adds that he had laid out a network of spies and agents provocateur in the Sikh capital, raised the British forces on the frontier to 11,639 men and 48 guns, and had seventy boats of 35 tons built to bridge the Sutlej at Ferozepur. In April 1844 he wrote that, whatever policy was followed, the contest with the Sikhs must come in the end, and that the time left should go to quiet but watchful preparation. Maharaja Sher Singh was murdered in September 1843 by his cousin Ajit Singh Sindhanwalia (Wikipedia).

Key moments

• 28 February 1842: reaches Calcutta as Governor-General.
• April 1842: moves to end the Tripartite Treaty and offers Jalalabad to the Lahore Darbar.
• 6 October 1842: issues the Somnath proclamation; the gates proved to be deal, which Wikipedia calls the first step towards his recall.
• October 1843: begins to discuss occupying the Punjab and builds up forces on the Sutlej.
• June 1844: the Court of Directors recalls him over his despatches, his disregard of their control and unsanctioned spending (DNB). He leaves Calcutta on 1 August 1844 and Sir Henry Hardinge succeeds him.
• 22 December 1871: dies.

What he is remembered for. In the Panth's record he is the Governor-General who handed Hardinge a frontier already armed for the First Anglo-Sikh War, which began when the Sikh army crossed the Sutlej on 11 December 1845.