He returned to England in 1845, and in 1847 was appointed by Lord John Russell to be a lord in waiting to the queen, an office which he held until 1852, and again under Lord Aberdeen's administration from January to October 1853, when he was appointed governor of Bombay. During this governorship the Indian Rebellion of 1857 broke out. Elphinstone checked the rising at a few places in his presidency, and put down the insurrection of the Rajah of Sholapur. He discovered a conspiracy in Bombay itself, and he seized the ringleaders. and prevented the conspiracy from coming to anything. He sent many of his troops elsewhere.