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\viewkind4\uc1\pard\cf1\f0\fs16 Equestrian monument with effigy of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), marble, bronze, Alfred Stevens.\par
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\pard\sa200\sl276\slmult1\qj Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was born Arthur Wesley, May 1769, to an aristocratic Anglo Irish family in Dublin. He was a formidable military officer, who was well respected by his soldiers, despite maintaining a strict discipline over his army. His illustrious military career began in 1787 when he joined the army, first fighting in Flanders than later in India, where he achieved his first remarkable victory at Assaye in 1803. After the Second Anglo-Maratha War, Wellington returned to England where he briefly served as a Member of Parliament and Chief Secretary for Ireland. In 1808, he left his offices and returned to the battlefield in Spain, where he led allied forces against advances by Napoleon\rquote s army. \par
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After six years of fighting, Wellington and the allied forces of Portugal and Spain, forced Napoleon out of the Spanish peninsula and into exile. Applauded by the nation as a hero, Wellington returned home and was awarded the title of Duke of Wellington. However, his respite from battle was short lived, as a year later Napoleon left exile and moved against British and allied forces in Belgium. It was here, that Wellington, with the aid of Prussian forces, defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. \par
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Three years later, Wellington re-entered political office, being appointed as Master-General of the Ordinance under Lord Liverpool in 1818. He briefly served as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in 1827, before he reluctantly resigned to become Prime Minister in 1828, a position he soon left in 1830. Until his retirement in 1846, Wellington served in several political offices, also briefly returning to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in 1842. He died in 1852 at the age of 83.\par
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On 18 November 1852, an elaborate procession carried Wellington\rquote s body from Chelsea Hospital to St. Paul\rquote s, where he was to be given a state funeral and interred. Wellington\rquote s funeral car made its way through the streets of London under the watch of a crowd estimated to be over 1,000,000 people. Inside a darkened Cathedral, a congregation of 10,000 watched as the final phase of the funeral came to a close, and the Duke of Wellington\rquote s coffin was lowered into the crypt. \par
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After the death of Wellington, a competition for the design of a national monument to the Duke was announced in 1856. Fifty-three models were entered into the competition, of which the model designed by Alfred Stevens, a relatively unknown British sculptor at the time, was one of nine to be awarded prizes. He was commissioned by the Office of Works to build Wellington\rquote s monument and was allotted \'a320,000 to fund the project. From 1858 to 1870, Stevens devoted his life to the creation of the monument, and died in 1875 before the monument was completed. In 1878 the monument was temporarily placed in the former Consistory Court Chapel in the south-west area of the Cathedral, and was left there until its relocation to its current location on the north side of the nave in 1894. It wasn\rquote t until 1912 that John Tweed completed the equestrian figure, which is placed on top of the monument, based on rough design\rquote s left by Stevens before he died. This marked the completion of Wellington\rquote s monument, 60 years after his death. \par
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