F. R. Ellis
Open-knowledge reference entry
Francis Robert Ellis, (5 May 1849 – 25 November 1915) was the 22nd Auditor General and Accountant General and Controller of Revenue of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
He was born the son of Colonel F. Ellis.
He joined the Colonial Service in Ceylon as a writer in 1871 and became Judge of Ratnapura in 1883, Police Magistrate in Colombo in 1885 and Director and Inspector-General of Prisons, Ceylon in 1891. He progressed to Government Agent of the Southern Province in 1897 and of Western Province the same year.
He was appointed Auditor General on 1 March 1902, succeeding William Thomas Taylor, and held the office until 1 March 1907, when he was succeeded by Bernard Senior.
He then transferred to British North Borneo as Governor in 1911.
He married Lucy, daughter of D. B. Thornton of St. Petersburg.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “F. R. Ellis” as open-knowledge reference entry. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as open-knowledge reference entry. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16466626. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1849, 1915, 1871 and 1883.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “F. R. Ellis”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow F. R. Ellis primary sources, F. R. Ellis archive and Ellis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “F. R. Ellis”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “F. R. Ellis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.