Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852), was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain. His defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 put him in the top rank of Britain's military heroes. In 2002, he was number 14 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.