Cecil Law, 6th Baron Ellenborough


Colonel Cecil Henry Law, 6th Baron Ellenborough, , was a British Army officer and a member of the House of Lords.

Baron Ellenborough

Cecil Henry Law was the third son of Henry Spencer Law and Dorothea. Law was educated at Wellington School, Somerset, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and passed out into the Army in 1869. He succeeded to the peerage on the death of his brother, Edward Law, 5th Baron Ellenborough, in 1915. He was introduced to the House of Lords on 15 February 1916, immediately after that year's King's Speech.

Military career

Law was commissioned as an officer into the 54th Regiment of Foot in July 1869, was promoted to lieutenant on 28 October 1871, and served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878–1880. Promoted to captain on 24 January 1883, to major on 21 June 1890, and to lieutenant-colonel on 19 November 1897, he commanded the 2nd battalion Dorsetshire Regiment during the Second Boer War in South Africa from 1900 to 1902 where he was present during the Relief of Ladysmith, and the battles of Laing's Nek and the Tugela Heights. For his services in the war, he was mentioned in despatches three times, received the Queen's Medal with five clasps and the King's Medal with two clasps, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the April 1901 South Africa Honours list. After the end of the war in June 1902, he returned to the United Kingdom in the, which arrived at Southampton the following month. Law was placed on half-pay in August 1902, and retired with the rank of colonel in 1906.

Family and later life

After his retirement from the British Army, Lord Ellenborough took an active interest in local philanthropic and patriotic institutions. He was for many years Chairman of Dorset County Hospital and President of the Dorset Territorial Army Association. Cecil Henry Law married Alice Caroline Astell in 1884, who died in 1916. On his death in 1931, he was succeeded by his son: Henry Law, 7th Baron Ellenborough.

Ancestry