Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Richard Colley Wellesley Marquess Wellesley of Norragh

(born June 20, 1760, Dangan, County Meath, Ire. — died Sept. 26, 1842, London, Eng.) British statesman. He inherited his father's Irish title as earl of Mornington and sat in the Irish House of Lords from 1781. He served in the British House of Commons (1784 – 97). As governor of Madras and governor general of Bengal (1797 – 1805), he used military force and annexation to greatly enlarge the British Empire in India, but he was recalled by the East India Co. for his vast expenditures. In 1809 he went to Spain to make diplomatic preparations for the Peninsular War; he served as foreign secretary (1809 – 12). As lord lieutenant of Ireland (1821 – 28, 1833 – 34) he tried to reconcile Protestants and Catholics. Despite his own achievements, he became increasingly jealous of his younger brother, the duke of Wellington.

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Wellesley, Richard Colley, Marquess of (1760-1842), the East India Company's (EIC) governor general of India, 1797-1805. Although overshadowed by the achievements of his younger brother Arthur, the Duke of Wellington, Wellesley was an important figure in his own right, especially in expanding British imperial power. During his governor generalship he redrew the map of India through a combination of diplomacy and military annexation, a process to which his brother's military victories made a formidable contribution. Mysore, Hyderabad, Tanjore, Surat, the Carnatic, and Oudh were either partially annexed or subordinated to EIC rule. French power in India suffered a major blow and Wellesley refused British government orders to restore French territory under the provisions of the Treaty of Amiens (1802), an act of insubordination which was soon justified by events. Wellesley's ambition, his expansionist policy, and the huge cost of his military arrangements alarmed the directors of the EIC in London. He was recalled in 1805 and threatened with impeachment, but survived. He remained politically important, serving as ambassador to Spain in 1808 and as foreign secretary, 1809-12. His later years were soured by jealousy of his younger brother's increasing fame.

Bibliography

Butler, Iris, The Eldest Brother: The Marquess Wellesley 1760-1842 (London, 1973)

— John M. Bourne

Biography: Richard Colley Wellesley

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The British colonial administrator Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley (1760-1842), served as governor general of India. He was one of the most vigorous expansionists to hold that office.

Richard Wellesley was born June 20, 1760, at Dangan Castle, Ireland, the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Mornington. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. On his father's death in 1781, he inherited the title and seat in the Irish House of Lords. Three years later he entered the English House of Commons, and in 1786 he was made a lord of the Treasury. In 1793 William Pitt the Younger appointed him to the Board of Control, where he was initiated into the problems of British India.

Even before he arrived in India as governor general in April 1798, Wellesley had developed a plan to fight renewed French interest in India. He pursued the expansion of British power by annexation and subsidiary alliances with native princes, often against the orders of the East India Company.

Mysore, a dynamic South Indian state ably ruled by Tipu Sultan, posed an immediate challenge, as Tipu was known to be corresponding with Napoleon I. As a preliminary to a direct attack upon Mysore, Wellesley contracted his first "subsidiary alliance" with the nizam of the powerful state of Hyderabad. By this treaty the French mercenaries training the troops of Hyderabad were replaced by British. The nizam's armies joined in the three-month campaign against Mysore, ending when Tipu Sultan was killed and his forces defeated at Seringapatam. The settlement saw additions to the East India Company's territories in southern India and to the nizam's. The latter turned over his acquisitions to the company to pay the British soldiers in the nizam's armies.

Wellesley (newly created marquess) employed the subsidiary alliance, like that arranged with the nizam of Hyderabad, as the main means of extending British power. Treaties with Tanjore (1799), Surat (1800), the Carnatic (1801), and Oudh (1801) would all be criticized in England, but none as much as the Treaty of Bassein (1802) with the fugitive peshwa of Poona, titular head of the powerful Maratha Confederacy. This treaty directly provoked a Maratha war which brought several British defeats before final victory. Intense criticism of Wellesley's policy forced his resignation in 1805.

Between 1806 and 1808 repeated attempts were made to impeach Wellesley, but he was finally exonerated by Parliament. During 1809 he served as ambassador to Spain before becoming foreign secretary. He left office in February 1812 and thereafter was noted as a Catholic emancipationist and opponent of both the East India Company and the peace terms of 1814. In 1821 Wellesley became lord lieutenant of Ireland and achieved the suppression of Catholic and Protestant secret societies. Wellesley resigned in 1828, when his younger brother, the Duke of Wellington, formed a ministry committed to Protestant ascendancy. Wellesley resumed the same post in 1833 but resigned when the Grey ministry fell the following year. Wellesley died at Kingston House, Brompton, on Sept. 26, 1842, and was buried in the Eton College Chapel.

The Most Honourable The Marquess Wellesley KG, PC

Governor-General of India
In office 18 May 1798 – 30 July 1805
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	Hon. William Pitt the Younger Henry Addington
Preceded by	Sir Alured Clarke (provisional)
Succeeded by	The Marquess Cornwallis
Foreign Secretary
In office 6 December 1809 – 4 March 1812
Monarch	George III
Prime Minister	Hon. Spencer Perceval
Preceded by	The Earl Bathurst
Succeeded by	Viscount Castlereagh
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
In office 8 December 1821 – 27 February 1828
Monarch	George IV
Prime Minister	The Earl of Liverpool George Canning The Viscount Goderich
Preceded by	The Earl Talbot
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Anglesey
In office 12 September 1833 – November 1834
Monarch	William IV
Prime Minister	The Earl Grey
Preceded by	The Marquess of Anglesey
Succeeded by	The Earl of Haddington

Born	20 June 1760 (2009-11-28T06:28:15) Dangan Castle, County Meath
Died	26 September 1842 (2009-11-28T06:28:16) Knightsbridge, London
Nationality	British
Political party	Whig
Spouse(s)	(1) Hyacinthe Gabrielle Roland (1766-1816) (2) Marianne Caton (d. 1853)
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Education and early career

Wellesley was born in 1760 in Ireland, where his family were part of the aristocracy. He was educated at Harrow School and Eton, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar, and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1780, he entered the Irish House of Commons for Trim until the following year, when by his father's death he became 2nd Earl of Mornington, taking his seat in the Irish House of Lords. He was elected Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1782, a post he held for the following year.^[1]In 1784 he joined also the British House of Commons as member for Bere Alston. Soon afterwards he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury by William Pitt the Younger. In 1793 he became a member of the Board of Control over Indian affairs; and, although he was best known for his speeches in defence of Pitt's foreign policy, he was gaining the acquaintance with Oriental affairs which made his rule over India so effective from the moment when, in 1797, he accepted the office of Governor-General of India.

Work in India

Mornington seems to have caught Pitt's large political spirit in the period 1793 to 1797. Both seem to have formed the design of acquiring a great empire in India to compensate for the loss of the American colonies;^{[citation needed]} the rivalry with France, which in Europe placed Britain at the head of coalition after coalition against the French republic and empire, made Mornington's rule in India an epoch of enormous and rapid extension of British power. Robert Clive won and Warren Hastings consolidated the British ascendancy in India, but Mornington extended it into an empire.^[2] On the voyage outwards, he formed the design of annihilating French influence in the Deccan. Soon after his landing, in April 1798, he learned that an alliance was being negotiated between Tippoo Sultan and the French republic. Mornington resolved to anticipate the action of the enemy, and ordered preparations for war. The first step was to effect the disbandment of the French troops entertained by the Nizam of Hyderabad.^[3] The invasion of Mysore followed in February 1799, and the campaign was brought to a swift conclusion by the capture of Seringapatam on 4 May 1799 and the killing of Tippoo Sultan. In 1803, the restoration of the Peshwa proved the prelude to the Mahratta war against Sindh and the raja of Berar, in which brother Arthur took a leading rôle. The result of these wars and of the treaties which followed them was that French influence in India was extinguished, that forty million people and ten millions of revenue were added to the British dominions, and that the powers of the Maratha and all other princes were so reduced that Britain became the true dominant authority over all India. He found the East India Company a trading body, but left it an imperial power.

He was an excellent administrator, and picked two of his talented brothers for his staff: Arthur was his military adviser, and Henry was his personal secretary. He founded Fort William College, a training centre intended for those who would be involved in governing India. In connection with this college, he established the governor-general's office, to which civilians who had shown talent at the college were transferred, in order that they might learn something of the highest statesmanship in the immediate service of their chief. A free-trader like Pitt, he endeavoured to remove some of the restrictions on the trade between Britain and India.^[4] Both the commercial policy of Wellesley and his educational projects brought him into hostility with the court of directors, and he more than once tendered his resignation, which, however, public necessities led him to postpone till the autumn of 1805. He reached England just in time to see Pitt before his death. He had been created a Peer of Great Britain in 1797, and in 1799 became Marquess Wellesley in the Peerage of Ireland.^{[note 1]}^[5] He formed an enormous collection of over 2,500 painted miniatures in the Company style of Indian natural history.

Napoleonic Wars

On the fall of the coalition ministry in 1807 Wellesley was invited by George III to join the Duke of Portland's cabinet, but he declined, pending the discussion in parliament of certain charges brought against him in respect of his Indian administration. Resolutions condemning him for the abuse of power were moved in both the Lords and Commons, but defeated by large majorities.

In 1809 Wellesley was appointed ambassador to Spain. He landed at Cádiz just after the Battle of Talavera, and tried unsuccessfully to bring the Spanish government into effective co-operation with his brother, who, through the failure of his allies, had been forced to retreat into Portugal. A few months later, after the duel between George Canning and Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and the resignation of both, Wellesley accepted the post of Foreign Secretary in Spencer Perceval's cabinet.

He held this office until February 1812, when he retired, partly from dissatisfaction at the inadequate support given to Wellington by the ministry, but also because he had become convinced that the question of Catholic emancipation could no longer be kept in the background. From early life Wellesley had, like his brother Arthur, been an advocate of Catholic emancipation, and with the claim of the Irish Catholics to justice he henceforward identified himself. On Perceval's assassination he, along with Canning, refused to join Lord Liverpool's administration, and he remained out of office till 1821, criticizing with severity the proceedings of the Congress of Vienna and the European settlement of 1814, which, while it reduced France to its ancient limits, left to the other great powers the territory that they had acquired by the Partitions of Poland and the destruction of the Republic of Venice. He was one of the peers who signed the protest against the enactment of the Corn Laws in 1815.

Ireland and later life

Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland was painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in 1791.

Wellesley lived together with Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland, an actress at the Palais Royal for many years. Her mother's husband was Pierre Roland, but she was said to be the daughter of an Irishman named Christopher Alexander Fagan. She had three sons and two daughters by Wellesley before he married her on 29 November 1794. He moved her to London, where Hyacinthe was generally miserable, as she never learned English and she was scorned by high society. Their daughter, Lady William Cavendish-Bentinck, married sequentially Sir William Abdy, 7th Baronet and Lieutenant Colonel Lord Charles Bentinck, while another daughter, Hyacinthe Mary Wellesley, married Baron Hatherton. Following his wife's death in 1816, he married, on 29 October 1825, the widowed Marianne (Caton) Patterson, whose mother Mary was the daughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence; her former sister-in-law was Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. They had no children.

In 1821 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Catholic emancipation had now become an open question in the cabinet, and Wellesley's acceptance of the viceroyalty was believed in Ireland to herald the immediate settlement of the Catholic claims. The Orange faction was incensed by the firmness with which their excesses were now repressed, and Wellesley was on one occasion mobbed and insulted. The hope of the Catholics remained unfulfilled. Lord Liverpool died without having grappled with the problem. Canning died; and on the assumption of office by Wellington, who was opposed to Catholic emancipation, his brother resigned the lord-lieutenancy. He had, however, the satisfaction of seeing the Catholic claims settled in the next year by the very statesmen who had declared against them. In 1833 he resumed the office of Lord Lieutenant under Earl Grey, but the ministry soon fell, and, with one short exception, Wellesley did not take any further part in official life.

On his death, he had no successor in the marquessate, but the earldom of Mornington and minor honours devolved on his brother William, Lord Maryborough, on the failure of whose issue in 1863 they fell to the 2nd Duke of Wellington.

Legacy

The Marquess Wellesley by John Philip Davis ("Pope" Davis).

The Township of Wellesley, Ontario, Canada was named in Richard Wellesley's honour, despite the many references (i.e. Waterloo, Wellington County) to his brother, Arthur Wellesley in the surrounding area.

As of the summer of 2007, a portrait of Marquess Wellesley hangs in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.

Bibliography

Butler, Iris. The Eldest Brother. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973.
Ingram, Edward, ed. Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr. Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798-1801. Bath: Adams and Dart, 1970.
Martin, Robert Montgomery, ed. The Despatches, Minutes & Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley During His Administration in India. 5 vols. London: 1836-37.
Pearce, Robert Rouiere. Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess Wellesley. 3 vols. London: 1846.
Renick, M.S. Lord Wellesley and the Indian States. Agra: Arvind Vivek Prakashan, 1987.
Roberts, P.E. India Under Wellesley. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929.
The Wellesley Papers: The Life and Correspondence of Richard Colley Wellesley. 2 vols. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1914.
Torrens, William McCullagh. The Marquess Wellesley: Architect of Empire. London: Chatto and Windus, 1880.

Notes

^ Having hoped to receive the Order of the Garter, Wellesley was much disappointed by an Irish peerage, which he contemptuously referred to as a "double-gilt potato."

References

^ Waite, Arthur Edward (2007). A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. vol. I. Cosimo, Inc.. pp. 400. ISBN 1602066418.
^ See, e.g., William McCullagh Torrens, The Marquess Wellesley: Architect of Empire (London: Chatto and Windus, 1880); P.E. Roberts, India Under Wellesley (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1929); M.S. Renick, Lord Wellesley and the Indian States (Agra: Arvind Vivek Prakashan, 1987).
^ "Hyderabad Treaty (Appendix F)," The Despatches, Minutes & Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley During His Administration in India, ed. Robert Montgomery Martin, 5 vols (London: 1836-37), 1:672-675; Roberts, India Under Wellesley, chap. 4, “The Subsidiary Alliance System.”
^ C.H. Phillips, The East India Company, 1784-1834, 2nd. ed., (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1961), 107-108; "Notice of the Board of Trade, 5 October 1798 (Appendix M)," Wellesley Despatches, 2:736-738.
^ Mornington to Pitt, April 1800, The Wellesley Papers: The Life and Correspondence of Richard Colley Wellesley, 2 vols (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1914), 121.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Parliament of Ireland
Preceded by Thomas Fortescue John Pomeroy	Member of Parliament for Trim 1780 – 1781 With: John Pomeroy	Succeeded by William Arthur Crosbie John Pomeroy
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Viscount Feilding Laurence Cox	Member of Parliament for Bere Alston 1784 – 1787 With: Viscount Feilding	Succeeded by Viscount Feilding Charles Rainsford
Preceded by Charles Jenkinson Charles Ambler	Member of Parliament for Saltash 1786 – 1787 With: Charles Ambler	Succeeded by Charles Ambler John Lemon
Preceded by John Hussey-Montagu Peniston Portlock Powney	Member of Parliament for Windsor 1787 – 1796 With: Peniston Portlock Powney 1787–1794 William Grant 1794–1796	Succeeded by Robert Fulke Greville Henry Isherwood
Preceded by George Hardinge John Sullivan	Member of Parliament for Old Sarum 1796 – 1797 With: George Hardinge	Succeeded by George Hardinge Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn
Masonic offices
Preceded by The Earl of Antrim	Grandmaster of the Grand Lodge of Ireland 1782 – 1783	Succeeded by The Lord Muskerry
Government offices
Preceded by Sir Alured Clarke, acting	Governor-General of India 1798 – 1805	Succeeded by The Marquess Cornwallis
Political offices
Preceded by The Earl Bathurst	Foreign Secretary 1809 – 1812	Succeeded by Viscount Castlereagh
Preceded by The Earl Talbot	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1821 – 1828	Succeeded by The Marquess of Anglesey
Preceded by The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos	Lord Steward 1830 – 1833	Succeeded by The Duke of Argyll
Preceded by The Marquess of Anglesey	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1833 – 1834	Succeeded by The Earl of Haddington
Preceded by The Earl of Jersey	Lord Chamberlain 1835	Succeeded by The Marquess Conyngham
Peerage of Ireland
New creation	Marquess Wellesley 1799 – 1842	Extinct
Preceded by Garret Wesley	Earl of Mornington 1781 – 1842	Succeeded by William Wellesley

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Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs	Stewart · Douglas-Home · Callaghan · Crosland · Owen · Carrington · Pym · Howe · Major · Hurd · Rifkind · Cook · Straw · Beckett · Miliband

v • d • e Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Family	Father: Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington · Mother: Anne Hill · Brothers: Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley · William Wellesley-Pole, 3rd Earl of Mornington · Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley · Sister: Lady Anne Smith · Wife: Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington · Children: Arthur · Charles

Battles and wars	Battle of Seringapatam · Fourth Anglo-Mysore War · Second Anglo-Maratha War · Battle of Assaye · Peninsular War · Battle of Vimeiro · Battle of Roliça · Second Battle of Porto · Battle of Talavera · Battle of Sabugal · Battle of Badajoz (1812) · Battle of Salamanca · Battle of Vitoria · Battle of Waterloo

Homes and Honours	Apsley House · Stratfield Saye House · Wellington's Column

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Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley

Contents

Education and early career

Work in India

Napoleonic Wars

Ireland and later life

Legacy

Bibliography

Notes

References