Portrait of Wellesley by Richard Evans.

The Honourable Gerald Valerian Wellesley (1770-1848) was an Irish clergyman of the Church of Ireland.

He was the fourth surviving son of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington and Anne Wellesley, Countess of Mornington and the younger brother of the politician Richard Wellesley and the general and politician the Duke of Wellington. When he was born his family were part of the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy based in Trim, County Meath.

Portrait of Wellington in 1815. Wellesley was the younger brother of the celebrated general the Duke of Wellington who tried to advance Gerald's career in the Church.

In 1806 he performed the Dublin wedding ceremony of his brother Arthur and Catherine Pakenham, later the Duchess of Wellington.[1]

He rose to be Prebendary of Durham, but future promotion was halted by his complex relationship with his wife Lady Emily Cardogan who Wellesley married while he was a Rector in Chelsea.[2] Their son George Wellesley became an Admiral in the Royal Navy.

In 1826 he was a source of conflict between his brother Wellington and his political ally the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool. Wellington pushed for his brother to be granted a vacant Irish bishopric, and was supported by Richard who was now the Viceroy of Ireland, but Liverpool objected as he was living with a woman who wasn't his wife. The dispute, which strained the relationship between the two, was resolved after Liverpool enlisted the support of both the Chief Secretary of Ireland and the Archbishop of Canterbury to support his case.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Muir p.181
  2. ↑ Muir p.6
  3. ↑ Gash p.203-4

Bibliography

  • Gash, Norman. Lord Liverpool: The Life and Political Career of Robert Banks Jenkinson. Faber & Faber, 2016.
  • Muir, Rory. Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769-1814. Yale University Press, 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.