Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was the Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 22 January 1828 to 18 November 1830 (succeeding F.J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich and preceding Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey) and from 17 November to 9 December 1834 (succeeding William Lamb and preceding Robert Peel). Wellington was best known for his military leadershipp during the British conquest of India and the Napoleonic Wars, defeating the Maratha Confederacy at the 1803 Battle of Assaye, driving the French from Spain during the Peninsular War, and ultimately winning the final battle against Napoleon I at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, making Wellington a national hero.
Biography[]
Early life and career[]
Wellesley in India, 1804.
Arthur Wellesley was born in Dublin, Ireland on 1 May 1769 to an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. In 1787, he enlisted in the British Army as an ensign, only for his pay to be doubled when he became aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham. Wellesley also served in the Irish Parliament for Trim from 1790 to 1797, and, in 1796, he was promoted to Colonel and first fought at the Battle of Boxtel in Holland. In May, he was transferred to India, serving in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War against Tipu Sultan, during which he played a key role in the decisive 1799 Siege of Seringapatam. Wellesley was then appointed Governor of Mysore, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1801. In 1802, Wellesley was promoted to Major-General, and he was then sent to command an army in the Second Anglo-Maratha War. In 1803, he defeated a much larger army of the Maratha Confederacy at the Battle of Assaye, and he won another unlikely victory at the Battle of Argaon. After growing tired of the Indian Subcontinent, despite acquiring £42,000 in prize money from his campaign, Wellesley requested a transfer back to Europe, departing in 1805.
Wellesley proceeded to serve as a Tory MP for Rye from 1806 and from Newport on the Isle of Wight a year later, also becoming Chief Secretary for Ireland and a Privy Counsellor. In 1807, he led an infantry brigade at the Battle of Copenhagen, and he was promoted to Lieutenant-General in 1808. In June 1808, he was sent to Portugal to take part in the Peninsular War against the French, and his first major victory was the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808. A year later, Wellesley was promoted to command all British forces in Portugal, and he won another major victory at the Battle of Talavera, leading to Wellesley being ennobled as "Viscount Wellington of Talavera". In 1810, he defended Lisbon at the Battle of Bussaco, and he built the Lines of Torres Vedras to defend the Portuguese capital. In 1811, he defeated another French army at the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro and the Battle of Albuera, and, in 1812, he led the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, before routing the French at the Battle of Salamanca. In 1813, he smashed Joseph Bonaparte's army at the Battle of Vitoria, for which he was promoted to Field Marshal in June. On 3 May 1814, after driving into southern France and taking Toulouse, Wellesley was made the "Duke of Wellington".
In late 1814, Wellington turned down a request from the Prime Minister to assume command of the armies in Canada fighting against the United States in the War of 1812, as he felt he was needed more in Europe. While serving as an emissary at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Wellington was recalled upon Napoleon's escape from Elba and return to power in France, and he was given command of a British-German-Dutch army in Belgium which was fought to a draw at the Battle of Quatre Bras before winning a decisive victory over the French at the Battle of Waterloo. While the Prussian army of Gebhard von Blucher played the decisive role in defeating the French at the end of the battle, and while most of the soldiers in Wellington's army were Germans and Dutchmen (only 26,000 of his 73,000 troops were British, and 30% of the 26,000 were Irish), Wellington had the battle portrayed as a "British" victory, and he acquired a reputation as a war hero.
The Duke of Wellington in 1840
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington returned to politics as a Tory, and he briefly served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army from 1827 to 1828 before being named Prime Minister in 1828. Wellington was instrumental in the founding of King's College London, and his term was also marked by the emancipation of Catholics (the granting of almost full civil rights to British and Irish Catholics). Wellington emancipated Catholics in spite of opposition within his own party, and he threatened to resign as Prime Minister if King George IV did not give his royal assent to his decision. Wellington's government fell in 1830 after Wellington lost a vote of confidence for sticking to the Tory policy of no reform and no expansion of suffrage, and he failed to stop the Reform Act 1832 from enfranchising the middle class. In 1833, however, his insistence that England was a Christian country with a Christian character led to the failure of a Jewish emancipation act. He served as interim Prime Minister in 1834 before Robert Peel returned from Italy to assume office, having declined the premiership in favor of remaining a member of the House of Commons. He served as Foreign Secretary from 1834 to 1835, minister without portfolio from 1841 to 1846, and as leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords until 1846. Wellington died in 1852 at the age of 83.