Arthur Charles Wellesley, 5th Duke of Wellington, (9 June 1876 – 11 December 1941), known as Arthur Wellesley from 1876 to 1900, and styled as Marquess of Douro from 1900 to 1934, was a British nobleman and landowner.
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Background and military career
Wellesley was born in 1876 to Arthur Charles Wellesley (youngest son of Lord Charles Wellesley) and his wife, Kathleen Bulkeley Williams. Wellesley's father inherited the ducal title and vast Wellington estates upon his elder brother's death in 1900, and became the 4th Duke of Wellington.
Wellesley attended Eton between 1890 and 1895, and later attended Trinity College at Cambridge. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 4th (Militia) battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment on 7 July 1897, and served as Aide-de-camp to the Earl of Ranfurly, Governor of New Zealand. After the outbreak of the Second Boer War in late 1899, he joined the regular army as a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards on 17 January 1900, and was part of a detachment sent to South Africa in March 1900 to reinforce the 3rd battalion fighting in the war. He served with his regiment there until July 1902, when he returned home after the war ended the previous month. He resigned his commission in 1903. He returned to active service as a temporary reserve second lieutenant in 1915, during World War I, and relinquished his commission in 1919, still a second lieutenant.