Mat 24, 1858.] 
OBITUARY.— ELSEY— SPENCER— BIRD. 
253 
noble Earl received tbe honour of c.b. In the latter years of his 
life he served as Lord High Steward of Her Majesty’s Household, 
and was made a Knight of the Garter. Feeling that his health was 
rapidly giving way, he retired from office, and shortly after, on the 
27th December, 1857, he expired, to the regret of his Sovereign 
and his numerous friends. 
William Wilberforce Bird, who was born in 1784, was the eldest 
son of W. Wilberforce Bird, of the Spring, Kenilworth, and Member 
for Coventry. In his boyhood he was at school at Warwick, but 
was sent to complete his education at Geneva. In 1802 he was 
nominated a member of the East India Civil Service, and went to 
Calcutta in 1803. After passing through the College of Fort 
William with considerable distinction, he was stationed at Benares, 
where he was early placed in situations of singular difficulty 
and importance. On one occasion, in the year 1809, a reli- 
gious disturbance broke out, attended with great destruction of 
life and property, and it became necessary to call out the troops, 
whom he personally conducted into the heart of the city, and 
was enabled to disarm and disperse the infuriated people, and 
restore tranquillity. On another occasion an insurrection, in re- 
sistance of the introduction of the house-tax, which threatened 
very alarming consequences, was put down through the exertions 
of Mr. Bird ; the multitudes being dispersed without the loss of a 
single life. 
For these services Mr. Bird received the highest approbation 
of the Government for “ the prudence, firmness, zeal, activity, 
and judgment which had marked all his proceedings.” After 
this time, Mr. Bird was selected for other important situations, 
where peculiar fitness was required; and having been succes- 
sively placed in the highest offices, both judicial and financial, 
was at length appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India, 
of which, in the absence of the Governor-General in the North- 
West Provinces, he became the President, and was four times nomi- 
nated Deputy-Governor of Bengal, with the duties of which office 
he was entrusted during the whole period of Lord Ellenborough’s 
administration. When that nobleman was recalled, Mr. Bird suc- 
ceeded him as Governor-General of India until the arrival of Sir 
Henry (the late Lord) Hardinge, whose first act was to re-appoint 
him Deputy-Governor of Bengal. Mr. Wilberforce Bird took a 
prominent part in all the great questions of the time, and was par- 
ticularly instrumental in the abolition of suttee, the suppression of 
