Taking an Airing in Hyde Park

During the tumultuous years of the Reform Bill (1831-2) the Duke of Wellington suffered many attacks from rioting mobs, both on his person and his property. The windows of Apsley House were broken many times and on one occasion a stone narrowly missed his head and smashed the pane of a bookcase in his study. On Waterloo Day in 1832 a mob followed the duke from the Royal Mint where he had been sitting for a portrait, to Apsley House, to find that the windows had been iron-shuttered since the passing of the Bill four days earlier. It has been speculated that this act earned him the name 'The Iron Duke'; and though the term had been used to describe him sporadically before these events, they undoubtedly served to encourage its more frequent use.