Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Biography

Arthur Wesley, later Wellesley, was born in Dublin in 1769 into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family. He studied at Eton from 1781 to 1784 and at the Royal Academy of Equitation in Angers, was commissioned in the British Army in 1787 and sat for a time in the Irish House of Commons. In India he fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, governed Seringapatam and Mysore, and in 1803 defeated the Maratha Confederacy at Assaye.

Back in Britain he was an MP and served as chief secretary for Ireland from 1807 to 1809. He made his name commanding the allied armies in the Peninsular War, was promoted field marshal after Vitoria in 1813, and became British ambassador to France and Duke of Wellington in 1814. In 1815 he and Blücher's Prussians defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

Turning to politics, he was master-general of the ordnance from 1818, represented Britain at the Congress of Verona in 1822, and was commander-in-chief of the army in 1827. As Tory prime minister from 1828 to 1830 he pushed the Roman Catholic Relief Act through Parliament against the resistance of George IV and the Lords, and fought a bloodless duel with the Earl of Winchilsea over it. He opposed the Reform Act of 1832, briefly led a caretaker government in 1834 and served as foreign secretary under Peel.

He remained a leading figure in the House of Lords until 1846, was chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1834, and was again commander-in-chief from 1842 until his death at Walmer Castle in 1852. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.