[The following passage comes from an article in the September 1878 issue of the The Graphic. — George P. Landow]
Sir Bernard Burke has satisfactorily proved, after much doubt on the subject, that the Duke of Wellington was actually born in Dublin at Mornington House, 24, Merrion Street, now the office of the Irish Church Temporalities Commission. Though the fact of the Duke’s family being for 600 years settled in Ireland was sufficient virtually to make him a true and born Hibernian, still a lamb is not a wolf, though it is born in a wolf’s fold, as O'Connell used to say. Canning, though not born in Ireland, often repeated the expression. He, at least, never failed to own himself an Irishman. The Duke’s mother was Anne, eldest daughter of Viscount Dungannun, his father tlut noted musician. Lord Mormugton, composer of the celebrated glee, “In Cool Grot," and many other songs and chants. Lord Morningtonington held the Professorship of Music in Trinity College. Dublin, and was the founder of a most successful Amateur Musical Society, composed of the nobility and members of professions then resident in Dublin.
At Eton the future Duke was called a slow boy, too slow for learning, too moping for football. He received his first commission in the 73rd Regiment at eighteen years of age, and sat in the Irish Parliament for Trim when past twenty-one. It was in the Netherlands, when Colonel of the 33rd Infantry, that he first gave promise of his strategic abilities by the handling of his regiment in saving Abercrombie’s column from being destroyed in that inglorious campaign. It was said that it was from the errors, not the successes, of his superior officers that Wellington learned his great generalship. Like most distinguished men, his faculties were not limited to the one rite. He became during the intervals of peace Ireland’s Chief Secretary, and his whole career proved him as skilful in the Council Chamber as he was daring and invincible in the field, he was the hero of an interesting occurrence in the House of Commons, when all his honours of Marquis, Viscount, Earl, and Duke were announced at the same time. It was at Dublin Castle, however, when a dashing captain and aide-de-camp, that he is said to have passed his happiest days, though so hard pressed for money to support his necessarily expensive life that he was glad to accopt a loan of cash from his bootmaker with whom he lodged on Aston's Quay, and whom he did not forget to pay in after years with gratitude.
Bibliography
“Dublin Illustrated.” The Graphic (17 August 1878): 169-81. Internet Archive online version of a copy in the University of Illinois Library. Web. 14 August 2018.
Last modified 1 April 2019