Arthur Wellesley, Earl of Mornington

The Wellesleys are an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family. Through his mother, Princess Antonia of Prussia, he is a great-great-grandson of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. As a descendant of Queen Victoria, he is in the line of succession to the British throne. He is the older brother of Lady Charlotte Wellesley.

Mornington was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford where he received a BA degree in philosophy, politics and economics in 1999. He subsequently obtained an MBA degree from Columbia Business School in 2005 and in 2006 his BA was, as is the custom for all BAs at Oxford, raised to an MA on the payment of a small fee. He was an employee of Bain & Company between 1999 and 2001, and for BC Partners between 2001 and 2003. He subsequently was a manager for Exponent Private Equity from 2005 to 2006. Next, he was a partner in the merchant bank Charterhouse Capital Partners from 2006 to 2016. A fellow banker, Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, has been reported in the press to be coincidentally the heir of the first Duke of Wellington's adversary Napoleon Bonaparte.[1] Since 2016, Mornington has been a partner of private equity investor Oakley Capital.[2]

On 4 June 2005, he married the makeup artist and fashion model Jemma Kidd, a great-granddaughter of Lord Beaverbrook. They were married at St James Church in Holetown, Barbados. The couple have twins and a younger son:[3]

• Lady Mae Madeleine Wellesley (born 4 January 2010 at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London)
• Arthur Darcy Wellesley, Viscount Wellesley (born 4 January 2010 at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London)
• The Hon Alfred Wellesley (born 10 December 2014)

In August 2020, the couple announced that they had decided to separate.

Mornington is the heir apparent to the Dukedom of Wellington (United Kingdom) and to the titles of Prince of Waterloo (Netherlands), Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo (Spain) and Duke of Victoria (Portugal). The British Peerage and the first two foreign titles can only be inherited in the male line, while the Spanish can devolve upon the holder's daughters.