POLE TYLNEY LONG WELLESLEY, Hon. William (1788-1857), of 39 Dover Street, Piccadilly, Mdx. and West Green, Hartford Bridge, Hants.

On hearing from Long Wellesley in 1811 of his engagement to the heiress Catherine Tylney Long (who, according to the cartoonists, found it ‘impossible to resist such a Pole’) his father had written:

I trust ... you may continue to deserve the astonishingly good fortune you have met with ... If you will act up to the determinations you have formed, you will be all that your mother and I can wish you to be, and you cannot fail of making Miss Long happy. M.D. George, Cat. of Pol. and Personal Satires, ix. 11744, 11747, 11844; Redbridge Local Hist. Lib. Long Wellesley mss, Wellesley Pole to Long Wellesley, 19 Nov. 1811.

Long Wellesley, surely one of the most odious men ever to sit in Parliament, soon blighted those pious hopes. By 1818, when he was returned for Wiltshire at a reputed cost of £32,000 in borrowed money, he was on the verge of ruin, largely, though not quite entirely, as a result of his own extravagance. By his marriage settlement an income of £13,000 was secured to his wife as pin money. He had a life interest in those estates of which she had the fee, and there was a power reserved to them both to charge this property with £100,000 by way of mortgage. The estates themselves were protected by entail on his eldest son. The mortgage was duly raised, but it did not rescue Long Wellesley from his embarrassments. Gronow Reminiscences, i. 63-64; VCH Essex, vi. 324-6; Ann. Reg. (1827), Chron. p. 297. He initially sought re-election for Wiltshire at the general election of 1820, when he had the support of the Liverpool ministry, of which his father and uncle, the duke of Wellington, were senior members. He lacked the resources to finance another contest and, humiliatingly, had to give up the attempt. HMC Fortescue, x. 454; Devizes Gazette, 24 Feb., 9 Mar.; Add. 51830, Suffolk to Holland, 9 Mar. 1820. Soon afterwards he was ‘obliged to quit the country with all his family or live in the king’s bench’. Hatherton mss, Hyacinthe to Gerald Wellesley, 11 June 1820.

He lived for about two years in Paris where, sustained by his wife’s separate income, he moved in fashionable circles. Von Neumann Diary, i. 79. In July 1821 he pressed his father, who had just been created Lord Maryborough in the United Kingdom peerage, to make such a resettlement of his estates as would give him the power of leaving them to his wife and children and enable him to raise on them money to meet the interest charges on the debts arising out of his wife’s estates. Maryborough swallowed his suspicions and authorized negotiations which ended, after some acrimony, in a compromise arrangement not altogether to Long Wellesley’s liking. W. Long Wellesley, Two Letters to Lord Eldon (3rd edn. 1827), 8-10, 83-94; Long Wellesley mss, Maryborough to Long Wellesley, 9 Aug. 1821. In the spring of 1822 he returned to England to attend to his affairs having obtained, presumably through his father’s political influence, a nominal court appointment to protect him against ‘personal molestation’. In June the contents of Wanstead House, a palladian mansion of great magnificence, were sold for £41,000. Northants. RO, Agar Ellis diary, 5 June [1822]; VCH Essex, vi. 326; Essex Rev. vii (1898), 213-14. Soon afterwards Long Wellesley, still hounded by creditors, was forced to return to the continent. He placed his finances in the hands of trustees, headed by his father who, enjoining on him ‘the strictest economy’, warned him that it would take at least five years to settle his ‘tremendous and complicated debts’ and so facilitate his return to England. In 1823 Wanstead was sold for demolition for £10,000 and virtually all trace of it was obliterated. In August of that year Maryborough, reporting to Long Wellesley on the first year of the trust’s operations, told him:

If you persevere for only three years you may return here in affluence and credit far beyond anything we thought possible ... If you ... leave us to exercise our own discretion, you may return at the end of three years with all your debts paid or secured; with all your creditors satisfied ... with Mrs. Wellesley’s diamonds saved; with Wanstead Park ... free for you to do with it as you please; with the farms on all your estates in perfect repair ... with no arrear due to any person whatever; and with a clear income of £13,000 a year. Long Wellesley mss, Maryborough to Long Wellesley, 16 Aug., 10 Sept. 1822, 25 Feb., 1 Aug. 1823.

Long Wellesley had already dished this prospect by committing a fresh act of folly. At Naples in the summer of 1823 he began a blatant adulterous relationship with Mrs. Helena Bligh, a protégée (some said a natural daughter) of Wellington. She left her ailing husband and Long Wellesley contrived to have her taken into his own establishment. Their fornication continued intermittently through the winter and was resumed in Paris in June 1824, when Mrs. Long Wellesley, goaded beyond endurance, threatened her husband with separation unless he abandoned Mrs. Bligh, whom she was willing to pay off. She appealed for Maryborough’s intervention but Long Wellesley, brazenly trying to exculpate his conduct and browbeat his wife, would have none of this. In July Mrs. Long Wellesley went to England with their three children, having agreed to follow Long Wellesley’s instructions for their upbringing and education. When she discovered early in August that he had renewed his intercourse with Mrs. Bligh she let him know that it was an insuperable obstacle to any reconciliation and that if he came to England to bother her she would start divorce proceedings. Ann. Reg. (1827), Chron. pp. 297-8; Long Wellesley mss, copy corresp. of Long Wellesley, his wife and Maryborough, 21 June-19 Aug.; Hatherton mss, Hyacinthe to Gerald Wellesley, 29 Dec. 1824. Long Wellesley, determined to set everyone at defiance, received a stinging rebuke from Maryborough, whom he was pestering to expedite his return from exile:

If you come ... before your affairs were arranged, I see no possibility of preventing your being put into jail during the whole of my life ... My only wish is to endeavour to save you from destruction; and to do this, it is absolutely necessary that you should be sensible of your true situation. I vainly hoped I had made you so; but ... I see ... that you have relapsed into the same vain delusion which has led you on to your ruin ... The whole world approve of your wife’s separation from you; and were you now to come to England and it were possible for you to remain out of jail you would be driven out of society ... [Mrs. Bligh] would be a monster among savages. Among civilized Christians she is an outcast. If you do not separate yourself from this abandoned, profligate wretch, you must share her fate. Long Wellesley mss, Maryborough to Long Wellesley, 2 Aug. 1824.

Long Wellesley finally alienated his father early in 1825 by ordering him to give up his trusteeship. This he did, resolving to have no further communication with his son, whose letters he returned unopened. Mrs. Long Wellesley had already decided to seek a divorce when, on 7 July 1825, Long Wellesley, who had been in London incognito with Mrs. Bligh for a fortnight, gained entry to her house and forced her to flee with their youngest child Victoria. The next day she filed a bill in chancery to make Victoria and her two elder brothers wards of court and served Long Wellesley with a citation for divorce. He returned to France with Mrs. Bligh, who on 22 Aug. 1825 gave birth to their illegitimate son. Meanwhile Mrs. Long Wellesley’s health had collapsed and she died ‘of a fever’, aged 35, 12 Sept. 1825, after enjoining her unmarried sisters Dora and Emma to continue their protection of the children. Ibid. F. Somerset to Long Wellesley, 17 Feb., Maryborough to Mrs. Long Wellesley, 15 Apr., 8 June; The Times, 12 July, 19 Sept.; Wellington mss WP1/827/14; Hatherton mss, Hyacinthe to Gerald Wellesley, 14 Nov. 1825; Arbuthnot Jnl. i. 412-13.

Long Wellesley’s repeated applications for custody were refused by the Misses Long, who claimed to have the support of his close relatives. When the dispute reached court, 5 Nov. 1825, lord chancellor Eldon ruled that Long Wellesley’s residence in France justified refusal of custody. He then petitioned to have a proper scheme of education settled by the court and this matter, together with the appointment of guardians, was referred to the master in chancery. Gent. Mag. (1825), ii. 467; The Times, 4, 7, 8, 10 Nov. 1825. Before the order could be acted on, Long Wellesley returned to England, contrived by some means to satisfy his creditors, and bought a house at Hall Place, Regent’s Park, from where he wrote to Mrs. Bligh, 20 Dec. 1825:

Everything is going on as well as possible ... Be patient, and I will pawn my life but I beat them all ... Do not imagine I am humbugged in any way ... I really am glad you are not with me. I am quite myself. I am acting without impetuosity. My mind is quite free from reflection, and I have so solidly laid the basis that the blow I give shall be but one and that a lusty one. All depends on your ... absence from me till I get my children. Then neither duke or devil can breach either you or me. Long Wellesley mss.

On 4 Jan. 1826 he petitioned chancery for the custody and future management of his children. Numerous affidavits were filed for and against his claim and the case, which excited great public interest, dragged on throughout the year. In the prerogative court, 24 Feb. 1826, Long Wellesley challenged the validity of a testamentary paper signed by his wife five days before her death revoking, ‘to serve the interests of my dear children’, her will of 1 July 1815, in which she had disposed of a contingent remainder of certain lands in his favour and charged others with a payment of £50,000 to him. He was granted sole administration of her personalty and effects in preference to Maryborough and Thomas Windsor, the executors named in the original will. The Times, 25 Feb., 18, 20, 22 Mar., 19 Apr., 20-22 Nov. 1825; PROB 11/1710/19. Soon afterwards Mrs. Bligh came to London, settling at 10 St. John’s Wood Road, and resumed her intercourse with Long Wellesley, who on 5 May 1826 was sued for crim. con. damages by her husband. His counsel managed to postpone the hearing until 1 Nov. 1826, when the sordid details already publicized in the chancery affidavits were given another airing. To a ‘tumult of applause’ the jury awarded Bligh £6,000. Long Wellesley was arrested for non-payment of the damages and was escorted by two sheriff’s men to the office of his solicitor, where the necessary security was lodged. Three weeks later Bligh filed for divorce from his wife. He was granted a decree in the consistory court, 11 May 1827, but presumably died before he could proceed further. The Times, 6, 9 May, 15 June, 2, 6, 8, 15 Nov., 25 Dec. 1826, 12 May 1827. The chancery case was resumed in January 1827, and on 1 Feb. Eldon pronounced judgment: although Long Wellesley had been ‘unnecessarily traduced before the public’ and ‘much more than was true had been said of him’, he stood condemned by the failure of his family to testify in his favour; by his ‘most shameful’ adultery with Mrs. Bligh, a common whore, which had been carried on even while his suit was in progress, and by ‘exceedingly strong evidence’ that he had in the past been guilty of ‘most grossly improper conduct’ towards his children, including coaching them in the art of blasphemous and obscene swearing. He was therefore deemed unfit to have custody of them, and the appointment of suitable guardians was referred to the master. Ibid. 3, 4, 12, 17-20, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30 Jan., 2 Feb., 10 Mar. 1827; Ann. Reg. (1827), Chron. pp. 299-310; George, x. 15442.

Long Wellesley resolved to appeal against the judgment to the House of Lords and, in an effort to strengthen his hand, importuned Wellington, the temporary guardian of his children, to effect a reconciliation with Maryborough. Yet by persistently threatening to disclose scandalous ‘family secrets’ if Maryborough refused to support him he soon alienated Wellington too. He duly published his Two Letters to Eldon, ‘with official and other documents, and additional notes’, which went through three editions between 6 May and 1 Aug. 1827. This, as well as excusing his adultery and dismissing much of the affidavit evidence against him as perjured, sought to prove that his family and the Misses Long were as vicious and immoral as himself. His appeal to the Lords was rejected on 4 July 1828. Two Letters, 99-131; Geo. IV Letters, iii. 1393; LJ, lx. 69-70, 600-1; The Times, 25, 26 Apr., 3, 8, 15 May, 5 July 1828; Wellington mss WP1/891/13. The duchess of Wellington and William Courtenay* were appointed guardians of the children in that year. Wellington mss WP1/942/4; 945/22. Meanwhile in June 1828 Long Wellesley had threatened to contest a vacancy for his former constituency of St. Ives, where he had evidently acquired property. He withdrew at the last minute but canvassed for a future occasion and distributed money before leaving. J.H. Matthews, Hist. St. Ives, 361, 363. In November 1828 he married Mrs. Bligh.

On 31 July 1829 Long Wellesley personally conducted before Lord Lyndhurst, Eldon’s successor, his case against a chancery order forbidding him to see his children except in the presence of a third party. The solicitor-general, opposing him, made much of allegations that he had earlier abused his access to the boys at Eton. Lyndhurst saw no reason to rescind the order but gave Long Wellesley the right of reply, in which he claimed to have ‘established, to the satisfaction of all impartial minds, that the false evidence by which I have been traduced, and robbed of my parental rights, was the offspring of malice’. George, xi. 15928; The Times, 1 Aug. 1829; Wellington mss WP1/971/4, 11; 974/10, 28; 998/4; 1006/2. In August 1829 Wellington acknowledged Long Wellesley’s acquiescence in the confirmed guardianship of the duchess, but warned him that if he persisted in making verbal threats against Wellington’s life and supplying newspapers with libellous material, he would be prosecuted. Long Wellesley apologized. Wellington mss WP1/1042/27, 28. Early in 1830, when he had taken up residence in Hampshire, he published a report of the recent court proceedings as an appendix to A View of the Court of Chancery, a further defence of his conduct masquerading as an exposition of the case for reform of chancery procedure. He was frustrated in his bid to take possession, as a tenant of chancery, of the house and estate of Draycot in Wiltshire, the property under entail of his elder son. His attempt to have the Misses Long’s solicitor, one of his principal accusers, struck off also failed; and he was again before Lyndhurst on 3 Apr. 1830, when he was ordered to surrender to the guardians his younger son James, who had absconded from Eton to join him. The Times, 12 Mar., 5 Apr. 1830; Wellington mss WP1/1009/18; 1014/13; 1020/7. Soon afterwards he published Illustrations of Chancery Practice, dedicated to Jeremy Bentham, which purported to be ‘a practical illustration of the evils of that secret system of judicature’ prevailing in chancery, but was in fact a renewed attempt to discredit those whose evidence had condemned him. Add. 33546, f. 414.

In March 1830 Long Wellesley, abetted by the radical Daniel Whittle Harvey*, started for Essex on a vacancy in opposition to the ministerialist Bramston, but on the day of nomination he made way for Henry Conyers, who had a prior claim. In a self-righteous explanation of his conduct, a feature of virtually every transaction in which he became involved, he ‘declared himself a reformer’ and advocated a radical redistribution of taxes. The Times, 8, 9, 12 Mar. 1830. Although at the general election four months later he was returned unopposed for St. Ives, he also contested Essex to the bitter end as ‘an independent’ and ‘a practical reformer’ who was ‘attached to no party’. He recommended a redistribution of taxation, moderate parliamentary reform through an extension of the franchise and shorter parliaments, civil and religious liberty, the abolition of slavery, poor law reform and mitigation of the penal code. He was only just beaten into third place by the Whig Western and the Tory Tyrell, who coalesced to thwart him. He claimed to be ‘virtually the representative of the county’ with his preponderance of single votes and condemned ‘the ultra-Tory and the ultra-Whig’ as ‘equally injurious to the interest of the country’. The election was reckoned to have cost him £23,000. Wellington mss WP1/1129/35; The Times, 7, 9-14, 16-21, 23, 24 Aug. 1830; Essex Election, Aug. 1830; G. Caunt, ‘Essex in Parliament’, Essex Jnl. i (1966), 69-76.

His uncle’s ministry numbered him among their ‘foes’ and, showing no lack of confidence on his return to the House, he used the debate on the address, 2 Nov. 1830, to lecture them on the need for wholesale changes of policy. One ministerialist sarcastically applauded his reappearance at Westminster ‘with such a magazine of oratory’, while another Member reported that his speech ‘excited much laughter’. Hopetoun mss 167, f. 177. He voted in the majority in the division on the civil list which brought the government down, 15 Nov., but deplored personal attacks on Wellington by the Whigs, 23 Nov., and rebutted criticism of his uncle Lord Cowley’s diplomatic pension, 13 Dec. He advocated a cautious reform of tithes, 19 Nov., 21 Dec., and poor law reform, 6 Dec. He extolled the ‘glorious manner’ in which the second French revolution had expiated the crimes of the first, 10 Dec. He presented anti-slavery petitions, 10 Nov., 10 Dec., but on 13 Dec. said that caution and ‘full and entire compensation to the colonists’ were necessary if abolition was not to precipitate revolution. Surveying the question of distress among the labouring poor, 17 Dec., he touched on the encouragement of spade-husbandry and of clerical residence (on which he had moved for information to form the basis for ‘a measure of great importance’, 10 Dec.) and reform of poor law administration as possible palliatives. Yet he hoped that the Grey government would tackle the problem in its entirety rather than leave it to piecemeal individual initiatives. On 23 Dec. 1830 he supported the ministerial motion to adjourn until early February, being disposed, on the strength of what they had already done, to ‘wait in silent confidence’ for disclosure of their future measures. He opposed as ‘a false humanity’ Hunt’s call for an amnesty for agricultural labourers convicted after the recent ‘Swing’ disturbances, 8 Feb. 1831. On 28 Feb. he presented petitions for parliamentary reform from Devizes and an Essex meeting which, in the absence of the county Members, he had attended and addressed. The Times, 1 Mar.1831. As a self-confessed ‘proselyte to reform’, he welcomed the ministerial reform bill as a ‘necessary and safe’ concession to ‘the spirit of the age’, 7, 9 Mar. At the Essex county meeting in its support, 19 Mar., he pledged to stand again at the first opportunity and declared his ‘intention of supporting the present ministry as a party man, so highly did he approve of the course they had adopted’. Ibid. 21 Mar. 1831. He voted for the second reading of the bill, 22 Mar., and against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. He clashed with Tyrell over the strength of reforming sentiment in Essex, 13 Apr., and questioned the worth of a hostile petition from Devizes, 18 Apr. 1831. He stood for Essex at the ensuing general election, this time in alliance with Western. They were comfortably returned over Tyrell on a wave of reforming enthusiasm and at little expense, even though Long Wellesley did not appear in person during the campaign. His absence was variously attributed by his spokesman Sir Felix Agar to business commitments in Cornwall and illness, but in truth he was once more in hiding from creditors at Calais. Ibid. 21, 25, 28 Apr., 6, 7, 9-12 May 1831. According to Mrs. Arbuthnot, ‘the sheriff who returned him had his hands full of writs against him’. Arbuthnot Jnl. ii. 421. He admitted as much when he arrived at Chelmsford for a belated celebration, but claimed that the debts were ‘not of his own contracting’. He went on to praise Lord Grey and the reform bill, which was ‘exactly suited to the times’:

No doubt, some time back a something more moderate reform would have been received, but he firmly believed that a less radical reform would not suit the exigencies of the times ... The basis of the bill was to represent property, locality, and influence possessed by locality. The Times, 19, 26 May 1831.

Yet he found some cause for complaint against the government for what he saw as their failure adequately to support his ‘wishes and interests’ at the election. Ellice, the patronage secretary, thought he had been ‘wholly misinformed’ but, anxious to placate him on account of his steady support in the Commons, gave him ‘the most ample explanation’, which seems to have smoothed things over. Long Wellesley mss, Ellice to Grey [7 June], Grey to Long Wellesley, 7 June 1831.

At the prompting of some Marlborough reformers Long Wellesley condemned the anti-reform petition presented by William Bankes, 24 June 1831, as the product of bribery and intimidation; and on 5 July he presented a counter-petition in support of the revised reform bill, for which he voted at its second reading, 6 July, and against an adjournment, 12 July. He then provided the House and the public with a diversion from the reform struggle by abducting his daughter from her aunts’ residence near Godalming on 15 July. Summoned to appear before lord chancellor Brougham the following day, he admitted the deed but refused to surrender the child, and was placed under house arrest for contempt of court. Brougham informed the Speaker, as did Long Wellesley who, disputing the chancellor’s right to commit, claimed the immunity of parliamentary privilege. The matter was referred to the committee of privileges, before which Long Wellesley appeared on 19 July. One of its members, Edward Littleton, recorded:

The profligate dandy perfumed the room as he entered. We asked him a few relevant questions, and then he made a long speech, stating what had passed in court between him and the chancellor, and he concluded apparently greatly affected, and shedding tears, and then withdrew.

The question became a party squabble, with opposition lawyers eager to embarrass Brougham, but on 26 July, ‘to the general surprise’, the committee decided that privilege did not apply. Long Wellesley meanwhile had raised the issue in chancery, but after the adverse Commons verdict his leading counsel declined to argue the case of lack of jurisdiction, 28 July. His junior wished to do so and was allowed by Brougham to state it as amicus curiae, before the chancellor pronounced a judgement upholding the jurisdiction. Long Wellesley was not released until 22 Aug., after Victoria had been retrieved from France and restored to her aunts. He continued to dispute the question of his access to the children but, after a private hearing before the chancellor in December 1831, he was again left frustrated. Ann. Reg. (1831), Chron. pp. 301-5; The Times, 18, 21-23, 29 July, 6, 22, 31 Aug., 19 Sept., 23 Dec.; CJ, lxxxvi. 667-8, 699-701; Hatherton diary, 18-21, 23, 26 July 1831; Holland House Diaries, 6.

The day after his release Long Wellesley voted in the government majorities on the Dublin election controversy. He voted for clause 22 of the reform bill, 30 Aug., and for its passage, 21 Sept., having the previous day supported it as ‘a renovation of the constitution’, despite misgivings over some of its details. He voted for the motion of confidence in ministers, 10 Oct. At the Essex reform meeting, 10 Dec., he attacked the bishops and declared:

Reform must pass, and all he saw was a scramble for power. He cared not for the ministry: all he wanted was pure representation, which would give every reform - financial reform and taxation.

He then almost came to blows with Harvey over an alternative address, but Western interceded to restore peace. The Times, 12 Dec. 1831. He endorsed the meeting’s petition in support of the ‘improved’ and revised reform bill, 14 Dec., and voted for its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831. He was in the government majority on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan. 1832, and voted steadily for the reform bill’s details during its progress through committee. On St. Ives’s loss of one Member, 23 Feb., he said he had received no instructions to defend the borough. He voted for the third reading, 22 Mar. He divided with government for the navy civil departments bill, 6 Apr. That day and on 16 Apr. he supported the coercive Irish tithes bill on the understanding that ministers planned, when order was restored, to reform the system; and on 14 June he observed that the abolition of tithes must be accompanied by compensation to the clergy. He voted for the address asking the king to appoint only ministers who would carry undiluted reform, 10 May, implored Wellington not to ‘stain his honour’ by taking office, 14 May, and spoke to the same effect in his constituency, 16 May. Ibid. 17 May 1832. He voted for the second reading of the Irish reform bill, 25 May, and against a Conservative amendment to the Scottish measure, 1 June. He divided for prompt action to abolish slavery, 24 May, against the exclusion of debtors from the House, 6 June, and to make coroners’ inquests public, 20 June. He spoke and voted in defence of government on the Russian-Dutch loan, 16 July, and the Greek convention, 6 Aug. 1832.

Long Wellesley stood for the Southern division of Essex in coalition with his fellow reformer Barrett Lennard at the ensuing general election, when he again hid from his creditors at Calais and left his campaign in the hands of his wife and Agar. The intervention of a strong Tory agriculturist candidate destroyed the reformers’ alliance and Wellesley was beaten into third place. As ever, public recriminations followed: Wellesley accused Lennard and Western of a breach of faith and was charged in return with having been the first to abandon the coalition in an attempt at self-preservation. Ibid. 30 Oct., 24 Nov., 3, 15, 17, 18, 20, 28, 29 Dec. 1832. For the next dozen years he lived mainly in Brussels. Scandal continued to surround his name and it was not long before his second wife separated permanently from him. He published Un Mot aux Belges in 1839 and a sequel, on Europe and the Eastern question, the following year. Wellington Pol. Corresp. ii. 15, 398, 399, 423, 424, 643. When applying unsuccessfully to Peel’s new Conservative ministry in 1841 for a diplomatic posting for his elder son he boasted of ‘having applied my parliamentary influence for the last seven years in support of Conservative principles, and I believe in various parts of England with no small degree of success’. Add. 43238, f. 119. In A Fourth Political Word (1842) he surveyed British politics since 1828 and confirmed that he had ‘become a convert’ to Peelite Conservatism. His Fifth Political Word (1843) dealt with foreign policy, and in two editions of The Irish Question (1844) he advocated a concordat with Rome to keep Catholic agitators in check. On succeeding his father in the peerage in 1845 he returned to England and took his seat in the Lords. He backed Peel on Maynooth and repeal of the corn laws, though he reckoned himself a supporter of Lord Derby’s Protectionist ministry in 1852. Add. 35788, f. 104.

By then his affairs were again in chancery in a dispute with his wife and elder son over the terms of a trust deed of 1834. She, who was a frequent recipient of parish relief and sued in formâ pauperia, sought to enforce payment of an annuity of £1,000 which Long Wellesley, in defiance of several court orders, refused to concede. His son wanted execution of those provisions of the deed which involved the payment to him of substantial sums and the raising of £462,000 to meet encumbrances. The Times, 12 July 1851, 28 Feb. 1852, 15 Mar., 16 July 1853, 20 Jan., 14, 28 June 1854, 12 June 1855, 6 June, 9 Nov. 1857. The matter was still unresolved when Long Wellesley died suddenly, while eating an egg, at the lodging house of Miss Louisa Brooks at Thayer Street, Manchester Square, in July 1857. He had been living obscurely in the area for about four years, apparently sustained in his penury by a weekly allowance of £10 from his cousin the 2nd duke of Wellington. Ibid. 4 July 1857; Ann. Reg. (1857), Chron. p. 316. In his will, dated 21 Feb. 1854, he recorded his ‘deepest obligation’ to Miss Anna Temple of Bayswater (he had in 1852 tried to get promotion in the postal service for a Mr. Temple) for ‘her unvarying kindness in supporting me in my present state of destitution, while I have the gravest cause of dissatisfaction with the members of my family for their ingratitude in leaving me to starve after having derived immense benefit from my prosperity’. He gave directions for the payment of a few small debts and made Miss Temple his residuary legatee for her life. A house which he owned in Savile Row was to be sold or let unless William Richardson, his executor, wished to occupy it, in which case he could do so rent-free. The entailed estates in Essex, Hampshire and Wiltshire passed to his elder and only surviving son William (b. 1813). PROB 11/2259/766; Add. 35788, f. 104. He, who died unmarried in Paris in 1863, when the barony of Maryborough became extinct and the earldom of Mornington devolved on the 2nd duke of Wellington, left them to his father’s cousin Henry, 1st Earl Cowley, after revoking his original bequest in favour of his sister Lady Victoria Long Wellesley. She, who seems to have had a relationship of mutual affection with her miscreant father, was a notable supporter of charities, founded the church of All Souls in Eastbourne and died in 1897. Barry, 108-20.

While some of the more spectacular feats of iniquity and depravity which were credited to Long Wellesley were obvious fabrications, the reality was sordid enough. A censorious obituarist dismissed him thus:

The mockery of heraldry was never more displayed than in the case of this most unworthy representative of the honour of the elder branch of the house of Wellesley ... A spendthrift, a profligate, and gambler in his youth, he became a debauchée in his manhood ... Redeemed by no single virtue, adorned by no single grace, his life has gone out even without a flicker of repentance; his ‘retirement’ was that of one who was deservedly avoided of all men. Gent.Mag. (1857), ii. 215-16.