Nobody is quite sure where the victor of Waterloo was born
The Duke of Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo and later led Britain as prime minister, yet his birthplace is still argued over. Dublin townhouse, Meath castle, a coach on the road between them or even the Dublin packet boat have all been proposed, and even his birth date wobbles by a day.
He started life as the Hon. Arthur Wesley, sixth of nine children of Garret Wesley, Earl of Mornington, a composer ennobled partly for his music, and Anne, the Countess. The family belonged to the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy. Most biographers accept 1 May 1769 from newspaper reports, but the register of St. Peter's Church in Dublin records his christening on 30 April. His mother recalled in 1815 that he arrived at the family townhouse on Merrion Street, now part of the Merrion Hotel. His Times obituary in 1852, however, said Dangan Castle in County Meath was universally believed to be the place, and in 1873 Sir Bernard Burke noted that Dublin was accepted but by no means proved.
His father died in 1781 and his eldest brother Richard took the earldom. Arthur was commissioned as an ensign in 1787, served as an aide-de-camp in Ireland and sat in the Irish House of Commons. By 1796 he was a colonel, and after fighting in Flanders he went to India, where the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War ended with victory at Seringapatam in 1799. As a new major general he crushed the Maratha Confederacy at Assaye in 1803.
The Peninsular War made his name. Victory over a French army at Vitoria in 1813 brought promotion to field marshal. After Napoleon's first exile he became ambassador to France and Duke of Wellington, and during the Hundred Days of 1815 his British-led army, alongside Prussians under Blücher, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.
Politics followed. As a leading Tory he was prime minister from 1828 to 1830, and again for under a month in 1834. He steered through the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 yet opposed the Reform Act of 1832. He remained a dominant voice in the Lords until 1846 and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces until he died on 14 September 1852.
Source: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
