2. William Algernon Cajetan² Law (William Towry¹) was born 7/08/1856. William died 27/10/1943 in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, at 87 years of age.

He married twice. He married Constance Mary Bagot. Constance was the daughter of Reverend Charles Walter Bagot. Constance died 1909. He married Catharine Rose Hozier. Catharine died 1930.

From The Times, October 28, 1943

Sir Algernon Law, K.C.M.G., C.B., Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1914 to 1916, died at his home at Gerrards Cross yesterday the age of 87.

William Algernon Cajetan Law was born at Hampton Court on August 7, 1856, the ninth and last surviving son of the Rev. the Hon. William Towry Law, by his marriage with Miss Matilda Montgomery, daughter of Sir Henry Montgomery, of Indian fame. he was the grandson of the great Lord Ellenborough, and in 1826, after his retirement, he made an important contribution to Indian historical and political bibliography in editing "India under Lord Ellenborough", unpublished dispatches of his uncle, the Governor-General. Law, who was educated at Oscott College and abroad, was appointed a Clerk in the Foreign Office at the age of 23. He spent almost the whole of the next 36 years in the Foreign Office, serving under eight Secretaries of State, beginning with Lord Granville, who had first held office before the Crimean war. Law was sent to The Hague for a short time in 1883; in April, 1899, he was promoted Assistant Clerk, and was made Acting Senior Clerk in charge of the Commercial Department in 1902, receiving the substantive rank two years later.

When the Internation Sugar Commission was convened at Brussels in 1908 Law was appointed the British delegate, and later he was made Royal Commissioner for the internation exhibitions, held at Brussels in 1910 and at Rome and Turin in the following year. From 1912 to 1916 he held the double office of Controller of Commercial and Consular Affairs. In June, 1914, he attained the rank of Assistant Under-Secretary of State. The last war brought about many changes and new deveopments in the Foreign Office. Out of the commercial department there sprang the blockade and commercial intelligence departments, and Law felt that a younger man should try to cope with its increasing complications. He accordingly retired, being created a K.C.M.G.

Law was a man with a very high sense of public duty. He disliked intensely all forms of self-advertisement, holding that anonymous service to the State was the proper ideal for a civil servant. His wonderfully accurate memory, his thoroughness in detail, and his grasp of the essential points in any question made him a model head of a Foreign Office department. Outside his work he had many and varied private interests, and these combined with a great charm of manner made him a delightful companion. As well as Indian history, English local history had an unfailing interest for him, and he was an authority on genealogy and English family annuls, on which subject he could throw some amusing side-lights.

Sir Algernon Law married in 1885 Miss Constance Mary Bagot, daughter of the Rev. Charles Walter Bagot, Rector of Castle Rising, by whom he had one son. She died in 1909, and three years later he married the Hon. Catharine Rose Hozier, daughter of the first Lord Newlands, and sister of Lady Lamington. In 1930 he ws again left a widower.

para_br eak

William Algernon Cajetan Law and Constance Mary Bagot had the following child:

3 i. Nigel Walter³ Law was born 1890.

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