Ernest Law

Who was Ernest Law?

Ernest Philip Alphonso Law CB CVO was an English historian and barrister.

Law came from an old Westmorland family and was a grandson of Lord Ellenborough, Lord Chief Justice of England. The diplomat Sir Algernon Law was his brother and Major-Generals Francis Law and Victor Law were his half-brothers. A Roman Catholic, he was educated at Oscott College and University College, London, from which he graduated BA in 1874. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1878 and practised on the South-Eastern Circuit and at the Parliamentary Bar. From 1891 to 1896 he was Comptroller and Secretary of the Provident Institution Savings Bank.

An expert on Tudor history, Law was appointed official historian at Hampton Court Palace and given a residence there, The Pavilion, where he lived until his death. He was also a Shakespeare scholar and a scholar of historic gardens, designing the knott garden and the Elizabethan borders of Shakespeare's garden at New Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, where he was a trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He also designed the sunken garden at the Brompton Hospital Sanatorium at Frimley and the garden theatre at Esher Place.