William Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone

William Buller Fullerton Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone and 1st Baron Elphinstone (18 November 1828 – 18 January 1893), known as William Elphinstone until 1861, was a Scottish Conservative politician.

Early life Elphinstone was born on 18 November 1828. He was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel James Drummond Fullerton Elphinstone (1788–1857) and his second wife, Anna Maria (née Buller) Elphinstone, who married on 25 February 1824. His mother was the only daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Buller and Gertrude van Cortlandt (descendant of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the Schuyler family and the de Peyster family from British North America).

Career He served as a midshipman on HMS Grampus from 1845 to 1847.

He succeeded his second cousin in the lordship in 1861 and was elected a Scottish representative peer in 1867. Elphinstone served as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) under Benjamin Disraeli from 1874 to 1880 and under Lord Salisbury from 1885 to 1886 and from 1886 to 1889. In 1885, he was created Baron Elphinstone, of Elphinstone in the County of Haddington, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

In February 1885, he spent three weeks in Victoria in south-eastern Australia with the English historian James Anthony Froude and his son, Ashley Anthony Froude.

Personal life Lord Elphinstone married Lady Constance Euphemia Murray (1838–1922), daughter of Alexander Murray, 6th Earl of Dunmore, in 1864. Among her siblings were Lady Susan Murray, Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore, and Lady Victoria Alexandrina (wife of Rev. Henry Cunliffe, a son of Sir Robert Cunliffe, 4th Baronet). Together, they were the parents of five children, only one of whom married: Lady Elphinstone died in March 1922, and lived in Pinewood, Windlesham, Surrey.