Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/269



ORD WEMYSS, at the age of twenty-five, when his title was Lord Elcho, had just taken his degree at Oxford, and had been elected to represent East Gloucestershire in the House of Commons, which constituency he continued to represent until, in 1846, he became a convert to Sir Robert Peel's Free Trade policy and resigned his seat. In the year following he was returned for Haddingtonshire as a Liberal-Conservative, and remained member for that constituency until the death of his father, in 1883, removed him to the House of Lords. Lord Wemyss has always played a very independent part in politics. When Lord Elcho, he was very widely and popularly known through his connection with the Volunteer movement and the National Rifle Association. He is Colonel of the London Scottish Rifle Volunteers, of which popular regiment he was the founder. He frequently presided over the Wimbledon meetings, and the portraits of him at different ages which we here present cannot fail to be extremely interesting to every Volunteer in the United Kingdom, not only on account of the great obligations which the Service owes to his energy, but as the presenter of the Elcho Shield.