Gerald Valerian Wellesley (1809, London–17 September 1882, Hazelwood, near Watford) was a Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 clergyman who became dean of Windsor

Dean of Windsor

The Dean of Windsor is the spiritual head of the Canons of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The Dean chairs meetings of the Chapter of Canons as primus inter pares.-List of Deans of Windsor:* William Mugge, 1348* Walter Almaly, 1380...

.

Family

He was the third son of Henry Wellesley, first Baron Cowley

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley GCB was the youngest brother of the Duke of Wellington, and became a notable diplomat in his own right.-Life:...

 (1773–1847), and his first wife, Lady Charlotte Cadogan (c.1781–1853, daughter of Charles Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan

Charles Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan

Charles Sloane Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan was a British peer and Whig politician.Cadogan was the only son of the 2nd Baron Cadogan and his wife, Elizabeth, the second daughter of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart. From 1749–54 and again from 1755, Cadogan was a Member of Parliament for Cambridge until he...

) - the couple divorced in 1810. His father was the younger brother of the 1st Duke of Wellington. On 16 September 1856, at St Mary's

St Mary's, Bryanston Square

St Mary's, Bryanston Square, is a Church of England church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Bryanston Square, London, just a five minute walk from any of Marylebone, Baker Street or Edgware Road tube stations...

, Bryanston Square

Bryanston Square

Bryanston Square is a square in Marylebone, Westminster, London, England. Named after its owner Henry William Portman's home village of Bryanston in Dorset, it was built as part of the Portman Estate between 1810 and 1815, along with Montagu Square a little to the east and Wyndham Place to its...

, London, he married the Hon. Magdalen ‘Lily’ Montagu (1831–1919), daughter of Henry Montagu, 6th Baron Rokeby

Henry Montagu, 6th Baron Rokeby

General Henry Robinson-Montague, 6th Baron Rokeby GCB was a British soldier.-Military career:Born the son of the 4th Baron, Rokeby was commissioned into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1814. He fought at the Battle of Quatre Bras and the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.He fought in the Crimean War as...

, and his wife, Magdalen Huxley. Their only child was a son, who died at the age of eighteen in 1883.

Life

Educated at Eton College

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 (graduating as MA in 1830), he was ordained in 1831. His first living was a family one at Stratfield Saye

Stratfield Saye

Stratfield Saye is a village and civil parish in the north-east of the English county of Hampshire.The parish includes the hamlets of West End Green, Fair Oak Green and Fair Cross.The name means 'Street-Field of the Saye family'...

 (1836-1854), during which he became queen Victoria's resident chaplain (in 1849), leading to his appointment as Dean in 1854. Tactful and gentlemanly in demeanour, religiously analogous to the queen, and a preacher of short sermons, he became "one of Victoria's most valued advisers", doing "everything on all sad and happy occasions to make me comfortable" and acting as an intermediary between her and Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

on both ecclesiastical and secular matters. Her appreciation of him was summed up in what she required in his successor as dean:

a tolerant, liberal minded broad church clergyman who at the same time is pleasant socially & is popular with all Members and classes of her Household,—who understands her feelings not only in ecclesiastical but also in social matters—a good kind man without pride.

Gladstone frequently sought his advice on patronage questions, noting in his diary at the time of Wellesley's death:

‘I reckoned his life the most valuable in the Church of England’.

On his death he was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor and his widow was appointed "extra woman of the bedchamber" in November 1882.