Family / house

Wellesley; Wesley; Cowley; Colley; Mornington; Wellesley of Wellesley

Family / cadet branch

Wellesley of Wellesley and Cowley, younger-son branch of the Earls of Mornington

Armiger / bearer

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley of Wellesley

Entity type

individual

Social rank / class

peer

Heraldic authority

College of Arms tradition, supported by Complete Peerage, heraldic calendars and later Cowley armorial records

Record basis

grant

Issued / first recorded

1828-01-21

Until / superseded

1847-04-27

Historical period

Georgian and early Victorian period

Grant / record reference

Barony of Cowley of Wellesley, County Somerset, created by letters patent 21 January 1828

Blazon

Quarterly: 1st and 4th, Gules, a cross Argent between in each quarter five plates in saltire, for Wellesley; 2nd and 3rd, Or, a lion rampant Gules ducally gorged Or, for Cowley or Colley.

Plain-English description

The shield is divided into four quarters. The first and fourth are red with a silver cross surrounded in each quarter by five silver roundels arranged diagonally. The second and third are gold with a red lion wearing a gold ducal collar. This combines the Wellesley paternal arms with the Colley or Cowley family arms.

Tinctures

Gules; Argent; Or

Charges / ordinaries

cross; twenty plates or roundels; lion rampant; ducal collar

Difference / variant

Henry's arms represent the Wellesley-Cowley family achievement used by the Mornington, Wellington and Cowley branches. The later earldom achievement of his son added an annulet for difference; that annulet should not automatically be projected backward onto Henry's 1st-Baron arms.

Source reference

The Peerage, Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley of Wellesley

Linked historical person

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley of Wellesley

Source

Open source

Genealogical context

Father

Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington

Mother

Hon. Anne Hill

Spouse(s)

Lady Charlotte Cadogan, married 20 September 1803; marriage dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1810; Lady Georgiana Charlotte Augusta Cecil, married 27 February 1816

Children / next generation

Henry Richard Charles Wellesley, later 1st Earl Cowley, by his first wife; Captain Hon. William Henry George Wellesley, by his first wife; Hon. Charlotte Arbuthnot Wellesley, later Lady Ebury, by his first wife; Very Rev. Hon. Gerald Valerian Wellesley, Dean of Windsor, by his first wife; Hon. Georgiana Charlotte Mary Wellesley, by Lady Georgiana Cecil

Notes / sources