Iconic Shot: Wellington College

© Richard Peat

Located on a 400 acre estate in southeast England, not far from Windsor Castle, is Wellington College, a selective co-educational public school in the same G-20 vein as Eton College, Phillips Academy and Harvard-Westlake.

The school is also a national monument to Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the Duke of Wellington. A Christian and Tory Conservative, the Irish-born commander of the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoléon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The triumph ended the Napoleonic Wars and ushered the era of Pax Britannica during which the British Empire enjoyed uncontested European hegemony while the continent itself enjoyed near-constant peace for 100 years.