THE PRESENT DUKE OF WELLINGTON

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29714, 6 January 1962, Page 8

THE PRESENT DUKE OF WELLINGTON

In 1947 Apsley House, which tands in magnificent isolation at Hyde Park Corner, was offered to the nation by the present Duke and by the Wellington Museum Act of that year the residence was transferred to the Crown partly as a public museum for the preservation and exhibition of the famous Duke’s relics and partly as a residence for the Dukes of Wellington. Under the Act the rights of the Dukes of Wellington to occupy a part

of personal relics. There are pistols, and shot, wonderful table services, including a selection from the Deccan Service, (commemorating his Indian campaigns of 1803) and battle instructions written in his own handwriting. The Waterloo Gallery is 90ft long and takes its name from the Waterloo banquets which the Duke held there from 1830 to 1852. William IV attended the first banquet in this Gallery in 1830. Previously the banquets had been held (from 1816-1829) in the dining room at the opposite end of Apsley House. The original banquet table and chairs extend down the middle of the room and on the table is the 26ft long centre-piece of the Portuguese service, ■which orginally consisted of some thousand pieces. Apsley House is not some, thing which can be treated cavalierly by any visitor. Its contents are very much part of English, and. indeed, of world history. It compels both attention and admiration.

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blunt, blundering, outspoken, honest fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.” — Philip G. Hamerten.