ABSTRACT
The figure of the Duke of Wellington stands like a colossus over early nineteenth century Britain. Through all the rapidly changing scenes of life in a period of unprecedented population growth, industrialism, urbanization, social distress, protest and political challenge, the hero of Waterloo remained the one permanent figure at the centre of national life, the imperturbable, immutable symbol of stability and continuity amid the turbulence and uncertainties of the age. But in contrast to his military career, on which there seems to be no end of the making of books, his place in the life of the state for a third of a century has been strangely neglected. This is particularly true of the twenty years following the first Reform Act of 1832, the point at which the publication of his papers stopped for a century.
