Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington

Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington KG (born August 21, 1885 - January 4, 1972 ), was a British peer , diplomat , soldier and architect.

Life

Gerald Wellesley was the third son of Lord Arthur Wellesley (since 1900 4th Duke of Wellington) and his wife Kathleen Williams (* 1927). He was educated at Eton College . As the younger son of a duke , he used the courtesy address of Lord Gerald Wellesley from 1900 to 1943 .

He served as a diplomat in the Diplomatic Corps in 1908 and was envoy of the Diplomatic Service in the United Kingdom in two degrees (1910–1917 Third Secretary , 1917–1919 Second Secretary ). In 1921 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects , in 1935 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts . From 1936 to 1943 he was Surveyor of the King's Works of Art .

Gerald Wellesley served in the Grenadier Guards in 1939 and received the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel . From 1939 to 1945 he fought in World War II .

When his nephew Henry Wellesley, 6th Duke of Wellington died childless in 1943 , he inherited him as 7th Duke of Wellington , 11th Earl of Mornington and 7th Prins van Waterloo . Henry's Spanish title, Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo , was first transferred to his sister (Gerald's niece) Lady Anne Rhys, before she ceded it to Gerald as the 9th Duque in 1949. A seat in the House of Lords was also associated with his British nobility titles .

From 1944 to 1949 he led the office of Lord Lieutenant of the County of London and from 1949 to 1960 of the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire .

In 1951 he was accepted into the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion .

Architecture projects

His architectural projects include the redesign of the London home of Henry Channon , an Anglo-American Member of Parliament. He also designed a tower for Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson .

family

Gerald Wellesley married on April 30, 1914 the poet Dorothy Violet Ashton (1885-1956), the daughter of Robert Ashton (1848-1898). From 1922 they lived separately, but the marriage was not divorced.

Gerald and Dorothy had two children:

Arthur Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington (later 8th Duke of Wellington) (1915-2014)
Lady Elizabeth Wellesley (* 1918), ⚭ Thomas Clyde, Major in the Royal Horse Guards

The marriage failed very quickly. Dorothy was either bisexual or lesbian . According to a family memorandum written by her granddaughter, Lady Jane Wellesley, Dorothy left her family for a relationship with Vita Sackville-West , who wrote an entry about Dorothy for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography .

Curiously, before his marriage to Dorothy, Gerald Wellington was engaged to Sackville-West's mistress Violet Trefusis . Dorothy later became the lover and partner of Hilda Matheson , a prominent producer on the BBC .

Publications

Gerald, Lord, & John Steegmann: The Iconography of the First Duke of Wellington . Foreword by Philip Guedalla. With 49 Pages of Plates. JM Dent & Sons, London 1935 (English).
Gerald Wellesley: The Diary of a Desert Journey . Putnam, London 1938 (English).
Francis & The Duke of Wellington (Eds.): The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820-1832 . January 1826 to January 1832. Volume 2 . Macmillan, Bamford 1950 (English).
A Selection from the Private Correspondence of the First Duke of Wellington (1952)

Web links

Lt.-Col. Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington on thepeerage.com
Mr Gerald Wellesley at Hansard (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Knights of the Garter at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
↑ BBC: Climb Faringdon Folly. February 17, 2009, accessed July 23, 2011 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c R. F. Foster: WB Yeats . A life. In: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939 . Arch-poet 1915-1939. tape 2 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-818465-2 , pp. 528 (English).
↑ Jane Wellesley: A Journey Through My Family . Phoenix, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7538-2604-1 (English).
^ Valerie Grove: The legacy of the Iron Duke is a lot to live up to. WELLINGTON: A JOURNEY THROUGH MY FAMILY by Jane Wellesley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £ 20). November 21, 2008, accessed June 19, 2011 .
^ Vita Sackville-West: Wellesley, Dorothy Violet, duchess of Wellington (1889-1956). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004 (rev. Clare L. Taylor).

personal data
SURNAME	Wellesley, Gerald, 7th Duke of Wellington
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British peer and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH	August 21, 1885
DATE OF DEATH	4th January 1972

[1] Knights of the Garter at Leigh Rayment's Peerage

[2] BBC: Climb Faringdon Folly. February 17, 2009, accessed July 23, 2011 .

[Yeats-3] R. F. Foster: WB Yeats . A life. In: The Arch-Poet 1915-1939 . Arch-poet 1915-1939. tape 2 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-818465-2 , pp. 528 (English).

[4] Jane Wellesley: A Journey Through My Family . Phoenix, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7538-2604-1 (English).

[5] Valerie Grove: The legacy of the Iron Duke is a lot to live up to. WELLINGTON: A JOURNEY THROUGH MY FAMILY by Jane Wellesley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £ 20). November 21, 2008, accessed June 19, 2011 .

[6] Vita Sackville-West: Wellesley, Dorothy Violet, duchess of Wellington (1889-1956). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004 (rev. Clare L. Taylor).