Wellesley
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
RICHARD COLLEY, VISCOUNT AND MARQUIS, and Earl of Mornington, eldest son of Garrett, 1st Earl of Mornington, and eldest brother of the Duke of Wellington; a British statesman; born in Dublin, Ireland, June 20, 1760. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. On his majority he took his seat as Earl of Mornington in the Irish House of Peers, and three years after was returned to the British House of Commons as member for Beeralston. Thus, by a curious anomaloner. is distinguished himself in omaly, he was at once a peer and a 1789 in the debates on the regency question. In this discussion, his defense of the royal prerogative, made known to George III. after his recovery, pleased him so much that the earl the next general election was returned for Windsor, and made a member both of the Irish and the English privy-council. These were only preliminaries to the higher appointment of Governor-General of India, which was conferred on him in 1797, along with a British peerage under the title of Baron Wellesley. His administration forms an era in the his tory of the British Indian empire. He returned to England in 1805, and in 1809 became foreign secretary under Mr. Perceval. In 1812 he resigned his place, chiefly because he was in favor of Catholic emancipation. He did not return to office till 1821, when he became Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland. This post he retained till 1827. In the Grey ministry he again (1833) became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, but finally retired from public life in 1835. He died in London, Sept. 26, 1842.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's account of Richard Colley Wellesley, written in 1921, still stands as biography: the dates of his birth in Dublin in 1760, his governor-generalship of India from 1797, his time as foreign secretary under Perceval and his death in London in 1842 are all as modern reference works give them. What has shifted is the judgement. Where Collier's says only that "his administration forms an era in the history of the British Indian empire", historians since the mid-20th century have described that era more concretely and more critically as one of deliberate conquest — the defeat of Tipu Sultan at Seringapatam in 1799, the Maratha wars, and the system of subsidiary treaties that bound Indian rulers to Company control, an expansion so costly that the directors recalled him. The name itself has also drifted: for most readers today "Wellesley" first suggests the Massachusetts women's college founded in 1875, not the marquess.
Written for this edition, 2026.