Wellesley (of Norragh), Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess

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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▪ British statesman

also called (from 1781) 2nd Earl Of Mornington, Viscount Wellesley Of Dangan Castle, or (from 1797) Baron Wellesley Of Wellesley, original surname Wesley

born June 20, 1760, Dangan, County Meath, Ire.

died Sept. 26, 1842, London

      British statesman who, as governor of Madras and governor general of Bengal (both 1797–1805), greatly enlarged the British Empire in India and who, as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1821–28, 1833–34), attempted to reconcile Protestants and Catholics in a bitterly divided country. Throughout his life he displayed an ever-increasing jealousy of his younger brother Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington (Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of, marquess of Douro, marquess of Wellington, earl of Wellington, Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington, Baron Douro or Wellesley), despite his own achievements.

      A moderately liberal disciple of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, Wellesley sat successively in the Irish House of Commons, the Irish House of Lords (after inheriting his father's Irish titles in 1781), and the British House of Commons until 1797. From 1793 he was a member of the British Privy Council and a commissioner of the India Board of Control. As governor general in India, he used military force and diplomacy to strengthen and expand British authority. He annexed much territory from some states and contracted with other states a series of “subsidiary alliances” by which all parties recognized British preponderance. He received a barony in the British peerage in 1797 and a marquessate in the Irish peerage in 1799.

      On receiving a British government order to restore to France its former possessions in India, he refused to comply; his policy was vindicated when the Treaty of Amiens (1802) was violated and Great Britain resumed war against Napoleonic France. Wellesley's annexations and the vast military expenditure that he had authorized alarmed the court of directors of the East India Company. In 1805 he was recalled and, soon afterward, was threatened with impeachment, although two years later he refused an offer of the foreign secretaryship. In 1809 he went to Spain to make diplomatic arrangements for the Peninsular War against France and later that year became foreign secretary in Spencer Perceval's ministry. In that office he antagonized his colleagues, who considered him an indolent megalomaniac and welcomed his resignation in February 1812.

      As lord lieutenant of Ireland, Wellesley disappointed the anti-Catholic George IV, and he was about to be removed when Wellington was appointed prime minister (January 1828). Wellesley then resigned because his brother was opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation, although the duke was constrained to accept (1829) that policy as a political necessity. Wellesley's second term as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1833–34) ended with the fall of the 2nd Earl Grey's reform government. When the Whig Party returned to power (April 1835), he was not sent back to Ireland, and in his rage he threatened to shoot the prime minister, the 2nd Viscount Melbourne. He wanted to be created duke of Hindustān so that his rank would equal that of his brother.

      Wellesley had no sons, and the marquessate became extinct upon his death. The earldom of Mornington went to his next surviving brother, William Wellesley-Pole.

Additional Reading

Paul E. Roberts, India Under Wellesley (1929); and John Kenneth Severn, A Wellesley Affair: Richard Marquess Wellesley and the Conduct of Anglo-Spanish Diplomacy, 1809–1812 (1981), examine different periods in Wellesley's career.

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