Madras’s
Mount road was richly associated with theatres and one among them was
Wellington, which reportedly opened in 1918 and stood at the junction of Mount
road – General Patters Road. Miles away, Wellington is the capital city and
second most populous urban area of New Zealand, located at the south-western
tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range. The 2014 Mercer Quality of Living Survey
ranked Wellington 12th in the world.
Wellington has been named ‘the coolest little capital’ by Lonely Planet
and is said to have more bars and cafes per capita than New York. Wellington’s nightlife is stylish and vibrant
with an internationally recognised coffee culture, specialty craft beer bars,
and a cuisine scene based on local produce from both land and sea.
The Wellington
Firebirds are one of six New Zealand first-class cricket teams that make up New
Zealand Cricket. It is based in Wellington.
Cricket has been one of the original sports seen in Wellington, a notice
in the NZ Gazette on 16 May 1840 stating “that a game of cricket had been
arranged between the gentlemen of Thorndon and members of the Pickwick
Club.” The Basin Reserve hosted its
first test match in Jan 1930 The
beautiful international cricket ground
Basin Reserve’ is the only cricket ground in New Zealand to have
Historic Place status.
In the
present ICC Cricket World Cup, 4th Quarter-Final between New Zealand v West
Indies will be held at Wellington on Mar 21, 2015. Earlier in a pool A match [9th match – ODI no. 3607] held at Westpac saw England
crushed. Wellington Regional Stadium
(known as Westpac Stadium through naming rights), due to its shape and silver
coloured external walls, is colloquially known as "The Cake Tin". It
was built in 1999 providing a larger capacity than Basin Reserve. In
the day/night match played on 20th Feb 2015, NZ won by 8 wickets (with 226 balls remaining). A fine exhibition of 9-0-33-7 by Tim Southee
had England tangled at 123 all out in 33.2 overs. The target was reached with ridiculous ease
in 12.2 overs with 8 wickets in hand. In
fact, New Zealand reached 100 in just 6.4 overs – the wicket of McCullum and
the luncheon recess somewhat delayed the end.
Brendon McCullum made 77 off mere 25 @ 308 strike rate.
Now
to the name and its Chennai connection : The place
Wellington, got its name from Arthur
Wellesley (1769-1852), the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of
Waterloo (1815): his title coming from
the town of Wellington, a small industrial town in the English county of
Somerset. It was named in November 1840 by the original settlers of the
New Zealand Company on the suggestion of the directors of the same, in
recognition of the Duke's strong support for the company's principles of
colonisation and his "strenuous and successful defence against its enemies
of the measure for colonising South Australia". The city's location close to the mouth of
the narrow Cook Strait leads to its vulnerability to strong gales, leading to
the city's nickname of "Windy Wellington".
In 1865, Wellington
became the capital city in place of Auckland, which William Hobson had made the
capital in 1841. The Parliament of New Zealand had first met in Wellington
in July 1862, and in Nov 1863, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Alfred
Domett, placed a resolution before Parliament
for transfer of capital.
Wellington is the location of the highest court, the Supreme Court of
New Zealand. Wellington houses the
Parliament, the head offices of all Government Ministries and Departments and
the bulk of the foreign diplomatic missions
Now
getting to the man who gave it the name - Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley,
1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH,
PC, FRS (1769 – 1852), was a British soldierand statesman, a native of Ireland
from the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy and one
of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century. His importance in national history
is such that he is often referred to as "the Duke of Wellington"
instead of "the 1st Duke of Wellington".
Wellesley was
commissioned as an ensign in the British Army in 1787; later elected as a
Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. A colonel by 1796,
Wellesley saw action in the Netherlands and in India, where he fought in the
Fourth Anglo-Mysore War at the Battle of Seringapatam. He was appointed
governor of Seringapatam and Mysore in 1799 and as a newly appointed
major-general won a decisive victory over the Maratha Confederacy at the Battle
of Assaye in 1803. Wellesley rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular
campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, and was promoted to the rank of field marshal
after leading the allied forces to victory against the French at the Battle of
Vitoria in 1813. Following Napoleon's exile in 1814, he served as the
ambassador to France and was granted a dukedom.
Wellesley's battle record is exemplary, ultimately participating in some
60 battles during the course of his military career.
Wellesley is
famous for his adaptive defensive style of warfare, resulting in several
victories against a numerically superior force while minimising his own losses.
Regarded as one of Britain's most significant military figures, in 2002, he was
placed at number 15 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was twice British prime minister under the
Tory party: from 1828–30 and for a little less than a month in 1834.
Arthur Wesley, was the third of five surviving
sons to The 1st Earl of Mornington and his wife Anne, the eldest daughter of
The 1st Viscount Dungannon. Wellesley arrived in India at Calcutta in February 1797 he spent several
months there, before being sent on a brief expedition to the Philippines. His elder brother Richard, known as Lord
Mornington, was appointed as the new
Governor-General of India. In 1798, he changed the spelling of his surname to
"Wellesley"; up to this time he was still known as Wesley. As part of the campaign to extend the rule of
the British East India Company, the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War broke out in 1798 against
the Sultan of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, Arthur Wellesley headed the 33- that left with the main force and travelled across 250 miles (402 km) of
jungle from Madras to Mysore. He led the
failed attack on the fort in the night.
A few weeks later, after extensive artillery bombardment, a breach was
opened in the main walls of the fortress of Srirangapatna. It was here that Tipu Sultan’s death
occurred. In India, he was frequently
affected by ill health too. It is stated
that he was promoted to the rank of major-general, gazetted in Apr 1802 but the
news taking several months to reach by sea. Wellesley spearheaded the attack on Maratha
fort in Aug 1803. In Sept the Battle of
Assaye commenced. British casualties
were heavy: the British losses were counted as 409 soldiers being killed out of
which 164 were Europeans and the remaining 245 were Indian; a further 1,622
British soldiers were wounded and 26 soldiers were reported missing !!
In June 1804,
a tired Wellesley applied for permission to return home and as a reward for his
service in India he was made a Knight of the Bath in September. While in India,
Wellesley had amassed a fortune of £42,000; and when his brother's term as Governor-General of
India ended in March 1805, the brothers returned together to England on HMS
Howe. In 1806, he married from Kitty Pakenham's family which reportedly turned to be unsatisfactory.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
17th Mar
2015.
Photo credits :
Wellington Cricket ground from NZ site – attributes unknown
"Tipu death" by Henry Singleton (1766
- 1839) - http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/tipusultan/death/death.html
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