EWART, WILLIAM (1798–1869), English politician, was born in Liverpool on the 1st of May 1798. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, gaining the Newdigate prize for English verse. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1827, and the next year entered parliament for the borough of Bletchingley in Surrey. He subsequently sat for Liverpool from 1830 to 1837, for Wigan in 1839, and for Dumfries Burghs from 1841 until his retirement from public life in 1868. He died at Broadleas, near Devizes, on the 23rd of January 1869, Ewart, who was an advanced liberal in politics, was responsible during his long political career for many useful measures. In 1834 he carried a bill for the abolition of hanging in chains, and in 1837 he was successful in getting an act passed for abolishing capital punishment for cattle-stealing and other offences. In 1850 he carried a bill for establishing free libraries supported out of the rates, and in 1864 he was instrumental in getting an act passed for legalizing the use of the metric system of weights and measures. He was always a strong advocate for the abolition of capital punishment, and on his motion in 1864 a select committee was appointed to consider the subject. Other reforms which he advocated and which have since been carried out were an annual statement on education, and the examination of candidates for the civil service and army.
EẂE, a group of Negro peoples of the Slave Coast, West
Africa. By the natives their country is called Eẃe–me, “Land
of the Eẃe.” The Eẃe family forms five linguistic groups:
the Anlo or Anglawa on the Gold Coast frontier, the Krepi of
Anfueh speech, the Jeji, the Dahomeyans and the Mahi.
See further Dahomey, and A. B. Ellis, The Eẃe-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast . . . (London, 1890).
EWELL, RICHARD STODDERT (1817–1872), American
soldier, lieutenant-general in the Confederate army, was born in
Georgetown, now a part of Washington, D.C., on the 2nd of
February 1817, and graduated at West Point in 1840. As a
cavalry officer he saw much active service in the Mexican War
and later in Indian warfare in New Mexico. He resigned his
commission at the outbreak of the Civil War, and entered the
Confederate service. He commanded a brigade in the first Bull
Run campaign, and a division in the famous Valley Campaign
of “Stonewall” Jackson, to whom he was next in rank. At Cross
Keys he was in command of the forces which defeated General
Frémont. Ewell’s division served with Jackson in the Seven
Days and in the campaign of Second Bull Run. At the action
of Groveton Ewell lost a leg, but did not on that account retire
from active service, though other generals led his men in the
sanguinary battles of Antietam (where they lost 47% of their
numbers) and Fredericksburg. After the death of “Stonewall”
Jackson, Ewell was promoted lieutenant-general and appointed
to command the 2nd Corps, with which he had served from the
beginning of the Valley Campaign. His promotion set aside
General J. E. B. Stuart, the temporary commander of Jackson’s
corps; that Ewell, crippled as he was, was preferred to the
brilliant cavalry leader was a marked testimony to his sterling
qualities as a soldier. The invasion of Pennsylvania soon
followed, Ewell’s corps leading the advance of Lee’s army. A
federal force was skilfully cut off and destroyed near Winchester,
Va., and Ewell’s corps then raided Maryland and southern
Pennsylvania unchecked. At the battle of Gettysburg, the
2nd Corps decided the fighting of the first day in favour of
the Confederates, driving the enemy before them; on the
second day it fought a desperate action on Lee’s left wing.
Ewell took part in the closing operations of 1863 and in all the
battles of the Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns. In the
final campaign of 1865 he and the remnant of his corps were cut
off and forced to surrender at Sailor’s Creek, a few days before
his chief capitulated to Grant at Appomattox. After the war
General Ewell lived in retirement. He died near Spring Hill,
Maury County, Tennessee, on the 25th of January 1872.
EWING, ALEXANDER (1814–1873), Scottish divine, was
born of an old Highland family in Aberdeen on the 25th of
March 1814. In October 1838 he was admitted to deacon’s
orders, and after his return from Italy he took charge of the
episcopal congregation at Forres, and was ordained a presbyter
in the autumn of 1841. In 1846 he was elected first bishop of
the newly restored diocese of Argyll and the Isles, the duties of
which position he discharged till his death on the 22nd of May
1873. In 1851 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university
of Oxford. Though hampered by a delicate bodily constitution,
he worked in a spirit of buoyant cheerfulness. By the
charm of his personal manner and his catholic sympathies he
gradually attained a prominent position. In theological discussion
he contended for the exercise of a wide tolerance, and
attached little importance to ecclesiastical authority and
organization. His own theological position had close affinity
with that of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen and Frederick
Denison Maurice; but his opinions were the fruit of his own
meditation, and were coloured by his own individuality. The
trend of his teaching is only to be gathered from fragmentary
publications—letters to the newspapers, pamphlets, special
sermons, essays contributed to the series of Present Day Papers,
of which he was the editor, and a volume of sermons entitled
Revelation considered as Light.
Besides his strictly theological writings, Ewing was the author of the Cathedral or Abbey Church of Iona (1865), the first part of which contains drawings and descriptive letterpress of the ruins, and the second a history of the early Celtic church and the mission of St Columba. See Memoir of Alexander Ewing, D.C.L., by A. J. Ross (1877).
EWING, JULIANA HORATIA ORR (1841–1885), English
writer of books for children, daughter of the Rev. Alfred Gatty
and of Margaret Gatty (q.v.), was born at Ecclesfield, Yorkshire,
in 1841. One of a large family, she was accustomed to act as
nursery story-teller to her brothers and sisters, and her brother
Alfred Scott Gatty provided music to accompany her plays.
She was well educated in classics and modern languages, and at
an early age began to publish verses, being a contributor to
Aunt Judy’s Magazine, which her mother started in 1866. The
Land of Lost Toys and many other of Juliana’s stories appeared
in this magazine. In 1867 she married Major Alexander Ewing,
himself an author, and the composer of the well-known hymn
“Jerusalem the Golden.” From this time until her death
(13th May 1885), previously to which she had been a constant
invalid, Mrs Ewing produced a number of charming children’s
stories. The best of these are: The Brownies (1870), A Flat-Iron
for a Farthing (1873), Lob-lie-by the Fire (1874), The Story of a
Short Life (1885) and Jackanapes (1884), the two last-named, in
particular, obtaining great success; among others may be
mentioned Mrs Over-the-Way’s Remembrances (1869), Six to
Sixteen, Jan of the Windmill (1876), A Great Emergency (1877),
We and the World (1881), Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales, Brothers
of Pity (1882), The Doll’s Wash, Master Fritz, Our Garden, A
Soldier’s Children, Three Little Nest-Birds, A Week Spent in a
Glass-House, A Sweet Little Dear, and Blue-Red (1883). Many
of these were published by the S.P.C.K. Simple and unaffected
in style, and sound and wholesome in matter, with quiet touches
of humour and bright sketches of scenery and character, Mrs
Ewing’s best stories have never been surpassed in the style of
literature to which they belong.
EWING, THOMAS (1789–1871), American lawyer and statesman,
was born near the present West Liberty, West Virginia, on
the 28th of December 1789. His father, George Ewing, settled at
Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio, in 1792. Thomas graduated
at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, in 1815, and in August 1816
was admitted to the bar at Lancaster, where he won high rank
as an advocate. He was a Whig member of the United States
senate in 1831–1837, and as such took a prominent part in the
legislative struggle over the United States Bank, whose rechartering
he favoured and which he resolutely defended against
President Jackson’s attack, opposing in able speeches the withdrawal
of deposits and Secretary Woodbury’s “Specie Circular”
of 1836. In March 1841 he became secretary of the treasury in
President W. H. Harrison’s cabinet. When, however, after
President Tyler’s accession, the relations between the President
and the Whig Party became strained, he retired (September
1841) and was succeeded by Walter Forward (1786–1852).
