Gerald Valerian Wellesley Vanity Fair 8 April 1876

Gerald Valerian Wellesley (1809 – 17 September 1882) was a Church of England cleric who became the Dean of Windsor. More importantly, he was domestic chaplain to Queen Victoria and played a major advisory role regarding the royal family's personal affairs. He was one of the Queen's chief confidants and often served as an intermediary in her problems and conflicts. In Church appointments he was sensitive to the Queen's preferences: he avoided recommending the appointment of either High Churchmen or teetotallers. He tried to identify and place clergymen who were also high status gentlemen in key parish churches. He was politically nonpartisan, but was a friend of William Gladstone. He played a prominent advisory role in the ministerial crisis of 1880.

Family

He was born in London, the third son of Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley (1773–1847), and his first wife, Lady Charlotte Cadogan (–1853), daughter of Charles Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan; the couple divorced in 1810. His father was the younger brother of the

1st Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

. On 16 September 1856, at St Mary's,

Bryanston Square Bryanston Square is an garden square in Marylebone, London. Terraced buildings surround it — often merged, converted or sub-divided, some of which remain residential. The southern end has the William Pitt Byrne memorial fountain. Next t ...

, London, he married the Hon. Magdalen "Lily" Montagu (1831–1919), daughter of

Henry Montagu, 6th Baron Rokeby General Henry Robinson-Montague, 6th Baron Rokeby, (2 February 1798 – 25 May 1883) was a senior British Army officer of the 19th century. Military career Born the son of the 4th Baron, Rokeby was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 18 ...

, and his wife, Magdalen Huxley. Their only child was a son, who died at the age of eighteen in 1883.

Life

Educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge (graduating MA in 1830), he was ordained in 1831. His first living was a family one at Stratfield Saye (1836–1854), during which he became Queen Victoria's resident chaplain (in 1849), leading to his appointment as Dean in 1854. He was Lord High Almoner from 1870 to 1882. Tactful and gentlemanly in demeanour, religiously analogous to the queen, and a preacher of short sermons, he became "one of Victoria's most valued advisers", doing "everything on all sad and happy occasions to make me comfortable" and acting as an intermediary between her and Gladstone on both ecclesiastical and secular matters. Her appreciation of him was summed up in what she required in his successor as dean: :a tolerant, liberal minded broad church clergyman who at the same time is pleasant socially and is popular with all Members and classes of her Household,—who understands her feelings not only in ecclesiastical but also in social matters—a good kind man without pride. Gladstone frequently sought his advice on patronage questions, noting in his diary at the time of Wellesley's death: :‘I reckoned his life the most valuable in the Church of England’. Wellesley died in Hazelwood, near Watford, and was buried in

St George's Chapel St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is both a Royal Peculiar (a church under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch) and the Chapel of the Order of the Gart ...

, Windsor; his widow was appointed "Extra Woman of the Bedchamber" in November 1882.

Memorials

His memorial at Stratfield Saye was sculpted by George Gammon Adams.Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis

Family

Life

Memorials

References

Further reading