ELLIS, Welbore (1713-1802), of Tylney Hall, Hants.

Ellis’s official career ended with Lord North’s, without the accolade of the peerage he wished for. He went into opposition to Pitt with North. In 1790 he was unprovided with a seat following the change of patronage at Weymouth and was expected to retire.1Cornwallis Corresp. ii. 42. But he was prepared to purchase one and seized on an opening at Petersfield, on William Jolliffe’s interest, in April 1791, his sponsor being the Duke of Portland. Jolliffe preferred him to a nominee of the Prince of Wales.2Prince of Wales Corresp. ii. 576. He voted with opposition on the Russian armament, 1 Mar. 1792, but was apparently silent in debate. In December 1792 he was listed a Portland Whig and in February 1793 thought of as a recruit for Windham’s ‘third party’. At any rate, he ceased to act with opposition and in the first few months of 1794 joined Portland’s group at Burlington House to concert measures.3Add. 33630, ff. 1, 11, 15; 33631, f. 4. On 14 May he was named to the secret committee on sedition. When the duke went over to government that summer, he obtained Ellis a peerage. As Ellis ‘freely’ bestowed his seat on Portland’s nominee, he must have paid for it.4Portland mss PwF3580.

A fund of anecdote and of classical knowledge, Mendip died 2 Feb. 1802, ‘almost the last of the respectable statesmen and politicians of the old school’, according to Lord Glenbervie, who added ‘I do not know of another alive who sat in Parliament with Sir Robert Walpole’.5Glenbervie Diaries, i. 56, 206, 309. By special remainder his title passed to his great-nephew Henry Agar Ellis, Viscount Clifden.