3xGreat grandfather to Queen Elizabeth II.
He was the eldest son of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, an Irish peer, and Anne, the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill-Trevor, 1st Viscount Dungannon; and brother of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, the famous General who later served as Prime Minister.
Part of the Anglo-Irish Aristocracy, Richard served a year in the Irish House of Commons before succeeding his father as 2nd Earl of Mornington (Marquis Wellesley from 1799), taking his seat in the Irish House of Lords. In 1784 he joined also the British House of Commons as member for Bere Alston. Soon afterwards he was appointed a Lord of the Treasury by William Pitt the Younger. He served as Governor-General in India 1798-1805. Created an English Peer in 1797, he served as ambassador to Spain 1809, and Foreign Secretary 1809-12. A supporter of Catholic Emancipation and an opponent of the Corn Laws, he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1821-8.
Wellesley lived together for many years with Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland, an actress at the Palais Royal. She had three sons and two daughters by Wellesley before he married her on 29 November 1794. He moved her to London, where Hyacinthe was generally miserable, as she never learned English and she was scorned by high society: Lady Caroline Lamb was warned by her mother-in-law that no respectable woman could afford to be seen in Hyacinthe's society. Their daughter, Anne (Lady Charles Cavendish-Bentinck), married sequentially Sir William Abdy, 7th Baronet, and Lieutenant Colonel Lord Charles Bentinck, while another daughter, Hyacinthe Mary Wellesley, married Edward Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton. Through Lady Charles Cavendish-Bentinck, Wellesley is a great-great-great grandfather to Queen Elizabeth II.
Following his wife's death in 1816, he married, on 29 October 1825, the widowed Marianne (Caton) Patterson, whose mother Mary was the daughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence; her former sister-in-law was Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. They had no children.
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Richard is 22 degrees from William Hartnell, 12 degrees from Thomas Baker, 28 degrees from Peter Capaldi, 14 degrees from Peter Cushing, 20 degrees from Peter Davison, 25 degrees from John Hurt, 12 degrees from Alex Kingston, 27 degrees from Paul McGann, 15 degrees from Jon Pertwee, 21 degrees from David Tennant, 25 degrees from Patrick Troughton and 27 degrees from Jodie Whittaker on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
W > Wellesley > Richard Wellesley KG, PC
Categories: Irish in India | Knights Companion of the Garter, George III creation | Governors-General of India | EuroAristo - Profiles that need work | Apsley House, Piccadilly, Middlesex | Members of Parliament, Trim | Members of Parliament, Ireland 1776 | Members of Parliament, Bere Alston | Members of Parliament, Great Britain 1784 | Members of Parliament, Saltash | Members of Parliament, Windsor | Members of Parliament, Great Britain 1790 | Members of Parliament, Old Sarum | Members of Parliament, Great Britain 1796 | Earls of Mornington | Marquesses Wellesley