William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington

The Right Honourable
The Earl of Mornington
The Right Honourable The Earl of Mornington
	William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, c. 1812
Member of Parliament for Essex
	In office; 1831–1832
Member of Parliament for St Ives
	In office; 1830–1831
Member of Parliament for Wiltshire
	In office; 1818–1820
Member of Parliament for St Ives
	In office; 1812–1818
Personal details
Born	William Wesley-Pole; 22 June 1788; Ultra-Tory
Spouses	; Catherine Tylney Long (m. 1812; died 1825) ; Helena Paterson Bligh (m. 1828)
Profession	Politician

William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington (22 June 1788 – 1 July 1857) was an

Anglo-Irish

nobleman notorious for his dissipated life of living.

Ancestry

One of his great-grandfathers was

Queen's County. Mornington married Elizabeth Sale, producing as heir Garret Wesley, 2nd Baron Mornington, who was created in 1760 1st Earl of Mornington in County Meath

. In 1759 he married Ann Hill and produced five successful sons; of these, the most prominent, are:

firstly

Marquess Wellesley

thirdly Hon. William Wesley (later William Wellesley-Pole, 3rd Earl of Mornington), father of the 4th Earl;
fifthly Arthur, Duke of Wellington.

William, above, inherited the Pole estates from William Pole (d. 1778) of Ballyfin, the childless brother of his aunt Ann Colley. The will of Pole required the family name to honour the inheritance, here Pole, thus William Wesley became in 1778 William Wesley-Pole. Wesley-Pole, born in 1763, also had an outstanding career, having been an Irish member of parliament for Trim, a Governor of Queen's County, and after the Union of 1800 a Westminster member for that county also, and having served as Chief Secretary for Ireland. He married in 1784 Katherine-Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Hon. John Forbes, Admiral of the Fleet and they had the 4th Earl .^[2]

Early life

Charles Williams, "The Disconsolate Sailor", 1811 - a cartoon about Catherine's choice between the Duke of Clarence (right) and William Wesley-Pole (left).

He was born William Wesley-Pole on 22 June 1788 in London and baptised at St George's, Hanover Square, on 19 July.^[3] His family, quite broadly defined, changed their surname to the more archaic 'Wellesley' in the early 1790s.

His first marriage was on 14 March 1812 to Catherine Tylney-Long, known in fashionable London society as "The Wiltshire Heiress",^[4] and believed to be the richest commoner in England. Two months before the ceremony William Wellesley-Pole assumed the additional surnames of Tylney-Long, changing his name by Royal Licence.

During this period William enjoyed a political career, first as a

Prince Regent, a number of other members of the royal family, and over a thousand dignitaries.^[5]

He was a friend of the Irish poet

King George IV

, an appointment which rendered him immune to arrest for debt, but he was soon to leave England entirely.

Second marriage and custody battle

While in Europe evading his creditors, Long-Wellesley began a relationship with Helena Paterson Bligh (died 7 April 1869), the wife of Captain Thomas Bligh of the

venereal disease

. Long-Wellesley married Helena in 1828, but this marriage as quickly proved calamitous.

As a notorious

rake he was unable to afford to make prudent investments in his first wife's property, but nor could he sell or mortgage it, having only a life interest

in it (enjoying its income). As life tenant, he arranged with other beneficiaries for the demolition and carving up of Wanstead House's estate, the proceeds of which repaid some of his great debts.

He returned to Parliament in 1830, again as a member (MP) for St Ives. He was one of the

his uncle's Ministry and brought about its fall on 15 November 1830. He was returned and as a knight of the shire (MP) for Essex

(in which lay Wanstead) from 1831 to 1832.

In the years following Catherine's death, he sought to regain control over his children, who were in the care of Catherine's two unmarried sisters, Dorothy and Emma. He was especially interested in William, the eldest, on whom Catherine's fortune had devolved. His uncle, the Duke, fighting one of his furious defensive actions, intervened on behalf of the children to keep the hapless William from his father.

Deprived of the custody of his children by the

Fleet prison by Lord Brougham in July 1831 for contempt of court; Long-Wellesley invoked parliamentary privilege, but his plea was rejected by the committee of privileges of the House of Commons

.

For some time he was in and out of court on charges of libel, and various other matters relating to his quest for custody of his children.

Decline and death

He led a very dissipated life and lived for a time in Brussels to avoid his creditors. In his last years, he lived on a small pension of £10 a week allowed by his cousin Arthur Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington. From 1842 he was styled Viscount Wellesley, and succeeded his father as Earl of Mornington in 1845.

He died in lodgings in Thayer Street, Manchester Square, London, on 1 July 1857, from heart disease. The obituary notice three days later in the

Morning Chronicle claimed that he was "A spendthrift, a profligate, and a gambler in his youth, he became debauched in his manhood... redeemed by no single virtue, adorned by no single grace, his life gone out even without a flicker of repentance". His coffin is in Catacomb B, Kensal Green Cemetery

, London.

References

^ The solemn declaration is recorded in: Patent Rolls 2 George II, 2a.p.D.R.4. (Quoted in Collins Peerage (1812) vol.8, p.541).
^ Ancestry in Collins Peerage, 1812, (9 vols.) vol. 8, pp. 540-545
^ As viewed in the Baptism Records (Westminster Archive) by Greg Roberts on 24 June 2009.
^ James Waylen, A History, Military and Municipal, of the Town (otherwise Called the City) of Marlborough (1854)
^ Roger Fulford, George the Fourth (1949)

Dictionary of National Biography

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Samuel Stephens Sir Walter Stirling, Bt	Member of Parliament for St Ives 1812–1818 With: Sir Walter Stirling, Bt	Succeeded by Sir Walter Stirling, Bt Samuel Stephens
Preceded by Richard Godolphin Long Paul Methuen	Member of Parliament for Wiltshire 1818–1820 With: Paul Methuen 1818–1819 John Benett 1819–1820	Succeeded by John Dugdale Astley
Preceded by James Halse Charles Arbuthnot	Member of Parliament for St Ives 1830–1831 With: James Morrison	Succeeded by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Preceded by Sir John Tyssen Tyrell	Member of Parliament for Essex 1831 – 1832 With: Charles Western	Constituency divided
Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by William Wellesley-Pole	Earl of Mornington 1845–1857	Succeeded by William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Wellesley-Pole	Baron Maryborough 1845–1857	Succeeded by William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley

[1] The solemn declaration is recorded in: Patent Rolls 2 George II, 2a.p.D.R.4. (Quoted in Collins Peerage (1812) vol.8, p.541).

[2] Ancestry in Collins Peerage, 1812, (9 vols.) vol. 8, pp. 540-545

[3] As viewed in the Baptism Records (Westminster Archive) by Greg Roberts on 24 June 2009.

[4] James Waylen, A History, Military and Municipal, of the Town (otherwise Called the City) of Marlborough (1854)

[5] Roger Fulford, George the Fourth (1949)

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

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