Tatler Dynasties: Meet the Wellingtons

That Life Guards stint, though, was fitting, as the Wellesleys have always been a prominent military family, beginning with their founding father, Arthur Wellesley, created the first Duke of Wellington in 1814. He conquered Napoleon at Waterloo (earning him and his successors the rather smart title of Prince of Waterloo), served twice as Prime Minister and invented the Wellington Boot. The current Duke is the first not to have served in the army – though his youngest son, Lord Fred Wellesley is keeping the tradition alive in the Household Cavalry. Other Dukes (often called Arthur) were well known for being the rumoured inspiration behind Jane Eyre’s Lord Rochester (2nd Duke), being a member of right-wing, anti-Semitic groups in the 1930s (5th Duke), and being very fat (3rd Duke).

Land
The sand-coloured Stratfield Saye in Hampshire – which used to be owned by the Pitts – and its 7,500 acre estate. They also have a 2,400-acre estate in Granada, given by Spain to the 1st Duke of Wellington for defeating the French occupying forces in the Peninsula War. Grandest of all though is Apsley House, also known as Number One London, packed with Goyas and Velázquezes, plus a naked statue of Napoleon by Canova, whose hand the late eighth Duke would use as a brake when he slid down the bannisters as a child.

Prominent romances
The current duke’s grandmother, Dorothy, was a poet and Yeats thought her one of the greatest of their time – and she was present at his deathbed in 1939 – but her great obsession was Vita Sackville-West, whose lover she became and for whom she left her husband Gerald in 1922.

Legacy

The first Duke of Wellington has at least 90 English pubs named after him. But not, sadly, the one owned by his descendent Sofia Wellseley, who runs the Fox and Pheasant with James Blunt, hard by the Chelsea football stadium. Their first paying customers? Tatler, who paid a visit when they opened their doors last year.