Is it quite something to look at the Duke of Wellington statue?”
The statue on the photo is known as “The Iron Duke bronze by Steele”. Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington and commander of the British forces that defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Many Glaswegians will look at this photograph of the statue of the Duke of Wellington in Royal Exchange Square and immediately point out that there is something missing – the traffic cone on Wellington’s head that became such a feature of this fine equestrian statue. Every time it was removed, it magically reappeared. It became such a part of the city that when it was suggested that this vandalism should cease, there was an outcry – with the Lord Provost (roughly equivalent to Lord Mayor) leading the defence, arguing that it displayed typical Glasgow humour… Eventually, however, the damage being caused to Wellington’s accoutrements (and the cost of repair) eventually led to efforts to bring the “tradition” to an end.
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (c. 29 April/1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852), was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century. Born in Ireland to a prominent Ascendancy family, he was commissioned an ensign in the British Army in 1787. Serving in Ireland as aide-de-camp to two successive Lords Lieutenant of Ireland he was also elected as a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. A colonel by 1796, Wellesley saw action in the Netherlands and later India where he fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War at the Battle of Seringapatam. He was later appointed governor of Seringapatam and Mysore. Wellesley rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and was promoted to the rank of field marshal after leading the allied forces to victory against the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. Following Napoleon’s exile in
