Russell Ellice
Russell Ellice (6 June 1799 – 15 September 1873) was a British businessman who was Chairman of the East India Company[1] and one of the first Directors of the British American Land Company.[2] Ellice was also a Director of the first New Zealand Company[3] and also the second New Zealand Company[4] Ellice was also a Governor of North American Colonial Association of Ireland and subsequently Chairman.[5]
Personal life
Russell Ellice was born in 1799 in Bath, Somerset,[6] the fifth son of Scottish parents Alexander Ellice and Ann Russell. He was baptised 2 July 1799 at St Mary's Church in Bathwick.[7] He was one of 10 children; He was the younger brother of merchant Edward Ellice. Russell Ellice lived at Brickendenbury Manor in Hertfordshire, where he died on 15 September 1873.[8][9] Ellice was married to Harriet Chaplin on 21 July 1826 in London. Harriet died in Hertfordshire in 1882.[10]
Career
In 1832 Ellice, together with Nathaniel Gould, was responsible for the largest land deal in Lower Canada, when the British Government sold, for £110,321, over one million acres in the Eastern Townships to the British American Land Company, of which Ellice was a director. Edward Ellice was one of the promoters of the company.
Ellice was involved with the British Bank of North America and attended their second meeting of directors.[11] Ellice was also Chairman of Cooper [Copper?] Mines of Combe Association.[12]
In 1831, Ellice was elected a director to the Court of the East India Company and in 1854 was elected Chairman.[9]
In a number of the schemes which Russell Ellice had an interest in, Edward Ellice's name featured also. Russell Ellice was a Director of the first New Zealand Company[3] and also the second New Zealand Company.[4] In the latter company Edward Ellice is also a Director, as is Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
Ellice was also a Governor of the North American Colonial Association of Ireland and subsequently its Chairman.[5] Edward Gibbon Wakefield was also a director of this organisation, to which Edward Ellice sold the Seigneury of Beauharnois. The latter subsequently had to buy back the land in order to save his investment.[13]
The two Ellice brothers had commercial control at different times, of a significant amount of the world. Russell Ellice as Chairman of the East India Company, was responsible for nearly a fifth of the world's population covering approximately a million square miles of the Indian sub-continent. The British American Land Company, of which he was a Director, had in excess of a million acres of land, whilst Edward Ellice, Lower Canada's largest absentee landowner,[14] was also a Director of the Hudson's Bay Company, which owned over three million square miles of North America.[15]
References
- The India list and India Office list for
- History of Canadian Wealth
- The Rosanna Settlers, by Hilda McDonnell: "The New Zealand Company of 1825"
- The Streets of my city, Wellington New Zealand, by F. L. Irvine-Smith. (1948).
- The Royal kalendar, and court and city register for England, Scotland ...
- 1851 England Census
- Somerset, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1531-1812
- brickendonbury
- What a Liberty!: A History of Brickendon and Its Environs Including Wormley ... By Graham R. Irwin
- http://www2.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?r=68137931&d=bmd_1329852393
- British imperialism and confederation. David Douglas Reid
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (Volume IX)
- The Canadian Encyclopedia
- Page 338, The Hudson's Bay Company as an imperial factor, 1821-1869 By John S. Galbraith