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Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"ROWLAND EDMUND PROTHERO ERNLE, 1ST Baron (1852), British agriculturist and politician, was born at Cliftonon-Terre Sept. 6 1852, the third son of the Rev. Canon Prothero, rector of Whippingham, Isle of Wight. He was educated at Marlborough and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1875, subsequently being elected to an All Souls fellowship. He remained at Oxford for some years as a fellow and tutor, and became well known as an authority upon agriculture. From 1883 to 1884 he was university proctor, and in 1894 became editor of the Quarterly Review, retaining this post till 1899. In 1898 Mr. Prothero became chief agent to the Duke of Bedford, and in this capacity his experience on agricultural questions was much extended. In 1910 he unsuccessfully contested the Biggleswade division of Beds. as a Unionist. In 1913 he was a member of the royal commission on railways, and in 1914 was elected member for Oxford University. He sat on the departmental committees on the home production of food (1914) and the increased price of commodities (1915), and in 1916, on the formation of Mr. Lloyd George's Government, became president of the Board of Agriculture. He resigned his office in 1919 and was raised to the peerage. Lord Ernie published Pioneers and Progress of English Farming (1887), and English Farming, Past and Present (1912); besides the Life and Correspondence of Dean Stanley (1893); Letters of Edward Gibbon (1896); a Memoir of Prince Henry of Battenberg (privately printed, 1897); Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1898-1901) and Letters of Richard Ford (1905). His Psalms in Human Life (1903; enlarged 1913), tracing the influence of the Psalter on the notable men of succeeding generations, had a great popular success.