WELLESLEY, RICHARD COLLEY WESLEY (or WELLESLEY), MARQUESS (1760-1842), eldest son of the ist earl of Mornington, an Irish peer, and brother of the famous duke of Wellington, was born on June 20, 1760. He was sent to Eton, and to Christ Church, Oxford. By his father's death in 1781 he became earl of Mornington, taking his seat in the Irish House of Peers. In 1784 he entered the English House of Commons as member for Beeralston. Soon afterwards he was appointed a lord of the treasury by Pitt. In 1793 he became a member of the board of control over Indian affairs and in 1797 accepted the office of governor-general of India. Wellesley seems to have caught Pitt's large political spirit during his intercourse with him from 1793 to 1797. That both had consciously formed the design of acquiring empire in India is not proved ; but the rivalry with France made Wellesley's rule in India an epoch of enormous and rapid extension of English power. Clive won and Warren Has tings consolidated the British ascendancy in India, but Wellesley extended it into an empire. For the details of Wellesley's Indian policy see INDIA : India under the Company.
He found the East India Company a trading body, he left it an imperial power. He was an excellent administrator, and sought to provide, by the foundation of the college of Fort William, for the training of a class of men adequate to the great work of governing India. A firm free trader, like Pitt, he endeavoured to remove some of the restrictions on the trade between England and India. Both the commercial policy of Wellesley and his educational projects brought him into hostility with the court of directors, and he more than once tendered his resignation. which.
however, public necessities led him to postpone till the autumn of 1805. He reached England just in time to see his friend Pitt before his death. He had been created an English peer in 1797, and in 1799 an Irish marquess.
On the fall of the coalition ministry in 1807 Wellesley was invited by George III. to join the duke of Portland's cabinet, but he declined, pending the discussion in parliament of certain charges brought against him in respect of his Indian adminis tration. Resolutions condemning him for the abuse of power were
moved in both the Lords and Commons, but defeated by large majorities. In 1809 Wellesley was appointed ambassador to Spain. He landed at Cadiz just after the battle of Talavera, and endeavoured, but without success, to bring the Spanish govern ment into effective co-operation with his brother in Portugal. A few months later Wellesley became foreign secretary in Perceval's cabinet. He retired in February 1812, partly from dissatisfaction at the inadequate support given to Wellington by the ministry, but also because he was convinced that the question of Catholic emancipation was urgent. With the claim of the Irish Catholics to justice he henceforward identified himself.
On Perceval's assassination he refused to join Lord Liverpool's administration, and he remained out of office till 1821, criticizing with severity the proceedings of the congress of Vienna and the European settlement of 1814. He was one of the peers who signed the protest against the enactment of the Corn Laws in 1815. In 1821 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Wel lesley's acceptance of the vice-royalty was believed in Ireland to herald the immediate settlement of the Catholic claims. But the hope of the Catholics still remained unfulfilled. On the assump tion of office by Wellington, who was opposed to Catholic emanci pation, his brother resigned the lord-lieutenancy. He had, how ever, the satisfaction of seeing the Catholic claims settled in the next year by the very statesmen who had declared against them. In 1833 he resumed the office of lord-lieutenant under Earl Grey's brief ministry. He died on Sept. 26, 1842.
See Montgomery Martin, Despatches of the Marquess Wellesley (1840) ; W. M. Torrens, The Marquess Wellesley (188o) ; W. H. Hutton, Lord Wellesley ("Rulers of India" series, 1893) ; and G. B. Malleson, Wellesley ("Statesmen" series, 1895) ; The Wellesley Papers: Life and Correspondence of Richard Colley Wellesley by the editor of "The Windham Papers" (2 vols., 1914).