Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, was one of the great politicians of his day.
Background
Richard Colley Wellesley was born on 20 June 1760, the eldest son of Garrett Wellesley, first Viscount Wellesley of Dangon Castle and Earl of Morn- ington in the County of Meath, Ireland. Richard’s mother was Anne, eldest daughter of Arthur Hill-Trevor, first Viscount of Dungannon. Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, was Richard’s younger brother.
Education
Wellesley was educated at Harrow, at Eton, and at Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of his father in 1781, he cut short his studies at Oxford in order to run the family estates in Ireland and to supervise the education of his five other brothers.
Career
He entered the Irish House of Peers in 1781 as the second Viscount Wellesley and Earl of Mornington, and in 1784 became M.P. for the seat of Beeralston in Devonshire. He was subsequently elected for the rotten, or corrupt, borough of Old Sarum in 1787, 1790, and 1796.
He was appointed a member of the Board of Control for Indian affairs in 1793, thus beginning his long political association with the Indian subcontinent. In 1797, when he became governor of Madras, he decided against taking her to India with him, which led to their subsequent estrangement.
In 1808, the House of Commons endorsed his policy in India, and the motion of impeachment against him for mishandling Indian affairs was dropped. Being among the Irish peers voted into the English House of Lords, he spoke there for the first time on 8 February 1808. Then, in 1809, he was sent to Seville as an ambassador extraordinary, in order to organize relations with the Spanish junta to enable his brother, Sir Arthur Wellesley, to carry out military campaigns in Spain. The high point of these campaigns was Sir Arthur Wellesleys victory at Talavera in July 1809. Shortly afterward, with the resignation of George Canning from the government as a result of his duel with Castlereagh, Wellesley became foreign secretary in the government of Spencer Perceval.
Wellesley served in that post from December 1809 until February 1812. He assumed the office at a time when Britain was isolated in Europe. Napoleon had established alliances with most other European nations and was threatening British trade through his Berlin and Milan decrees. Relations between the United States and Britain had broken down, and there were grave doubts in England about the wisdom of the Peninsular War. Wellesley’s own relations with Spencer Perceval were not good, and his absence from many cabinet meetings prepared the way for his resignation. However, the assassination of Perceval on 11 May 1812 led the prince regent to ask Lord Wellesley to form a government, bringing together the leading figures from the Tory and Whig parties. He was unable to do so; instead, Lord Liverpool formed a Tory ministry.
Wellesley was out of office from 1812 to 1821. During this period he began to drift away from the politics of his brother, Wellington, whose career he had supported in both India and Spain.
In 1821, Wellesley was offered, and accepted, the post of lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Wellesley was out of office for four years. During that time he remained active in Parliament and voted in favor of the Reform Bill of 1832, having reversed his attitude toward parliamentary reform in 1793. After the bill was passed, he was asked by Earl Grey, the prime minister, to be lord steward of the royal household. From 1832 to 1834, Wellesley also served again as lord lieutenant of Ireland. He continued with his conciliatory policy toward Ireland and pushed for more Roman Catholics to be incorporated into the civil service. After 1834 he gradually withdrew from active politics. He died on 26 September 1842.
Politics
Politically, he was a supporter of William Pitt, the Younger, favoring controls on the slave trade; but he opposed parliamentary reform in 1793.
Wellesley supported free trade, whereas Wellington supported protection. On the Irish question, Wellesley pressed for the removal of Irish disabilities; until 1829, Wellington refused to support such a measure. In foreign policy, Wellesley wanted Napoleon to be allowed to assume the throne of France, whereas Wellington wanted what became the Waterloo campaign.
Personality
Wellesley was a remarkably gifted politician. He was one of the great figures who consolidated British power in India. His service in Spain helped ensure the success of the Peninsular War, and his policy on Ireland was enlightened and statesmanlike. His role as foreign secretary was possibly the least successful part of his career. Nevertheless, he was one of the great politicians of his day, and only narrowly missed becoming prime minister.
Since he was known to favor Roman Catholic emancipation, he was popular with the Catholics, although he was obviously opposed by the Protestant Orangemen. Despite all the violence that accompanied British rule in Ireland, Wellesley attempted to maintain a policy of conciliation under Lord Liverpool and George Canning; but he resigned after Canning’s death and the emergence of his brother as prime minister, for Wellington supported the Protestant ascendancy. Up to that point, Wellesley had reorga-nized the Irish police, reformed the magistracy, attempted to reduce party prejudice, and had raised money to relieve the acute poverty of the early 1820s. Unlike Sir Robert Peel—a pro-nounced anti-Catholic who was involved both in Ireland and as home secretary in the 1820s— Wellesley was fair-minded.
Connections
He married Hyacinthe Gabrielle, daughter of Pierre Roland of Paris, with whom he had lived for nine years and by whom he had had children.
His second marriage in 1825, to Marianne Patterson, an American Roman Catholic widow, confirmed Wellesleys pro-Catholic credentials. She was the grand-daughter of Charles Carroll, who at his death in 1832 was the last surviving signatory of the American Declaration of Independence.