NAM.1970-06-8-1

Leatherbound manuscript diary of Maj Edward Wellesley, 73rd Foot, serving in the Crimean War (1854-1856), April to September 1854. Major Edward Wellesley (1823-1854), a great nephew of the First Duke of Wellington, was first commissioned in 1839, transferring to the 73rd Regiment of Foot in 1844. When in 1854 Lord Raglan appointed him Assistant Quartermaster-General to the Army of the East, he had already seen active service at the Cape. Wellesley died of cholera on 20 Sep 1854 and his diary, having been left with his baggage aboard ship when the Army disembarked at Kalamita Bay, was - evidently inadvertently - sold in the auction of his effects held at Raglan’s headquarters before Sevastopol on 17 November. Ironically, when the late Field Marshal Lord Carver edited his great grandfather Edward Wellesley’s South African and Crimean War letters for publication in 1995, he was unaware of the diary’s existence.

Crimean War (1854-1856)