ABSTRACT
In the last six years of his life and for thirty years afterwards, the great symbol of the Duke of Wellington’s standing in the hearts and minds of the country was the huge equestrian statue that stood opposite Apsley House. Sixty-two of his friends and former comrades in arms had formed a committee to subscribe and arrange for it at the beginning of 1838 and the Queen had given permission for it to be placed on the triumphal arch by Decimus Burton recently erected opposite the central arch of his screen at the entrance to Hyde Park beside Apsley House. After eight years of acrimony, only to be expected in a group chaired by the Duke of Rutland and including such disputatious worthies as Lord Londonderry, J.W. Croker, the Duke of Richmond and Lord Anglesey, the bronze statue by Mathew Cotes Wyatt was finally ready; not as had been hoped by Waterloo Day, 1846, but at least by September.
