Journey through my family: the Wellington story

 
This is not the usual biography of the Duke of Wellington of Waterloo fame. Here Jane Wellesley takes us on a journey through all the recent generations of her family, starting with that preceding the first duke and ending with the author herself and her nephews. Her stance is resolutely familial with the discussion on the micro level, providing interesting snippets from personal correspondence and family hearsay. Whilst this sort of thing would not wash with, say, my family or yours, it is fascinating at the level of the descendants of “the greatest man England has known”, as Victorian hyperbole described the “Iron Duke” – so-named not for his military stoicism but for the iron shutters put on Apsley House after the ground floor windows had been destroyed by the mob armed with stones in 1831. Fortunately the book does not attempt to whitewash the family. They are shown warts and all (broken marriages, political insensitivity, relations with Vita Sackville-West, etc.). And though the interweaving of the stories of the different members of the family did not convince this particular reader, the book remains a fascinating snapshot of the two-centuries of the British aristocracy.
P. H. December 2009
 
About the author
Jane Wellesley is a British television producer and the great-great-great-granddaughter of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington (1769-1852).