Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough

Tenure

Ellenborough was appointed Governor-General in 1842, succeeding Lord Auckland, in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous British retreat from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War, in which nearly an entire British-Indian force was destroyed. His priority on arrival was to extricate British forces from Afghanistan while restoring imperial prestige, which he pursued through punitive expeditions to Kabul and Jalalabad before withdrawing British troops from the country in 1842. He marked the withdrawal with an elaborate public proclamation involving the return, from Ghazni, of gates supposed to have been looted from the Somnath temple centuries earlier, a gesture intended to appeal to Hindu opinion that was widely mocked at the time, including in Britain, and the gates themselves were later found not to be the originals.

Sindh and Gwalior

In 1843, Ellenborough sanctioned the annexation of Sindh, carried out by General Charles Napier following a disputed campaign against the Amirs of Sindh; the annexation was controversial even among contemporaries as an act of aggression against a state that had not clearly provoked it. The same year, British forces intervened in the princely state of Gwalior following a succession dispute, resulting in the First Anglo-Gwalior War, in which British troops defeated Maratha forces at Maharajpur and Punniar and imposed a settlement bringing the state more firmly under British influence.

Recall

Ellenborough's autocratic style of governance and his tendency to act without consulting the East India Company's Court of Directors in London led to friction with the Company's leadership. He was recalled in 1844, before completing a full term, one of the few Governors-General removed from office in this manner. He returned to Britain and later served in Cabinet posts, including First Lord of the Admiralty.