yr13_ia_2007_howard_c

= = =Evaluation of Sources=

Source 1
The primary source in my approach to this assessment has been “Lord Ellenborough: A biography of Edward Law, Earl of Ellenborough, Governor-General of India”, by Albert Henry Imlah. Although intended to be focused on his political career, the source’s greatest weakness is that Imlah’s text contains little detail of Law’s personal life, specifically his children. The detail it provides with regards to his heirs is in fact wrong. As a descendant of Law, for Imlah to state that he had no children other than a son who died in childhood is implausible as, if it were true, I would not exist. Law did have an illegitimate daughter, Ida Villiers, who was brought up in Law’s household as a noble[|[1]]. Where Imlah details in the final chapter that Law “was buried… in his little Saxon chapel by the side of his first wife and of the son whom he had once hoped would carry on his name” he neglects to mention that Law sired any other children. Elsewhere in the text, Imlah details the birth of Law’s son by Lady Jane Digby and the child’s tragic death at the age of two after a seizure but fails to acknowledge Law’s daughter Ida. Far from kept a secret, Ida was raised in Law’s household and provided for generously. Paintings survive of her dressed in a crinoline and silks and it is also known that she had staff and tutors. One of these tutors, her piano master George Bayfield Roberts, she later eloped with and was subsequently disinherited. I can only assume that any records of her were hidden after her scandalous elopement and Imlah simply didn’t know of her existence. This does however reveal a gap in his research, which leads me to believe that there may be similar mistakes in the rest of his text. On the other hand, the source as a whole includes valuable information about the era in which Edward Law existed, providing an in depth background into the politics of the era for example, making the interpretation of his career and life’s work even more startling as it is documented alongside current affairs.

Source 2
The second source I used to support my findings on Edward Law were his personal diaries, “A Political Diary, 1828-1830” (volumes 1 and 2). The origin of this source is of incalculable value as it is, of course, written by Edward Law himself at the time of his career. The diaries include everything from his luncheon with the King to the idiocy of the Foreign Office, with Law divulging his personal thoughts and opinions throughout. One extract that demonstrates the sources value perfectly is … < need to re-download Law’s diaries because I lost the original copies > The fact that it was written by a reliable commentator of the era does give it a valuable source, it also proves to be a weakness as inevitably some content could be biased. Law’s continued struggle against the narrow-mindedness of society had made him convinced of his own righteousness. While he probably did know better than most British government officials, this tarnishes the source’s credibility as it suggests that the documentation of his career and the era could be from be biased point of view. Law may well have embellished events to make himself look superior to his colleagues, or may have actually considered events to be far more dramatic and offensive than to someone who was less opinionated.

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[|[1]] Details of Ida Catherine Villiers can be found in the 1851 England Census at: [|www.ancestry.co.uk]. The census states that Hebe Sarah Coleman is Ida’s mother, and that she lived in Bishops Cleeve (the same parish as Law’s estate).