Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in the context of "Treaty of Paris (1815)"

King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London. It is one of the oldest university-level institutions in England. In the late 20th century, King's grew through a series of mergers, including with Queen Elizabeth College and Chelsea College of Science and Technology (1985), the Institute of Psychiatry (1997), the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals and the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery (in 1998).

King's operates across five main campuses: the historic Strand Campus in central London, three other Thames-side campuses (Guy's, St Thomas' and Waterloo) nearby, and a campus in Denmark Hill in south London. It also has a presence in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, for professional military education, and in Newquay, Cornwall, which is where King's information service centre is based. The academic activities are organised into nine faculties, which are subdivided into numerous departments, centres, and research divisions. In 2023/24, King's reported total income of £1.271 billion, of which £256.9 million was from research grants and contracts. It has the fourth largest endowment of any university in the UK, and the largest of any in London. King's is the sixth-largest university in the UK by total enrolment and receives over 68,000 undergraduate applications per year.

The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in Westminster, London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the United Kingdom, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of Wellington.

The academy provides undergraduate and postgraduate training across instrumental performance, composition, jazz, musical theatre and opera, and recruits musicians from around the world, with a student community representing more than 50 nationalities. It is committed to lifelong learning, from Junior Academy, which trains musicians up to the age of 18, through Open Academy community music projects, to performances and educational events for all ages.

A cantonment (/kænˈtɒnmənt/, /kænˈtoʊnmənt/, or UK: /kænˈtuːnmənt/) is a type of military base. In South Asia, a cantonment refers to a permanent military station (a term from the British Raj). In United States military parlance, a cantonment is, essentially, "a permanent residential section (i.e., barrack) of a fort or other military installation".

The word cantonment, derived from the French word canton, meaning corner or district, refers to a temporary military or winter encampment. For example, at the start of the Waterloo campaign in 1815, while the Duke of Wellington's headquarters were in Brussels, most of his Anglo–allied army of 93,000 soldiers were cantoned, or stationed, to the south of Brussels.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher. The battle was known contemporaneously as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France (after the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean) and La Belle Alliance in Prussia ("the Beautiful Alliance"; after the inn of La Belle Alliance).

Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, the beginning of the Hundred Days, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition to oppose him again, and hurriedly mobilised their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately, before they could link up and invade France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, while a small portion of the French Imperial Army contested the Battle of Quatre Bras to prevent the Anglo-allied army from reinforcing the Prussians. The Anglo-allied army held their ground at Quatre Bras but were prevented from reinforcing the Prussians, and on the 17th, the Prussians withdrew from Ligny in good order, while Wellington then withdrew in parallel with the Prussians northward to Waterloo on 17 June. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, which resulted in the separate Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard on 18–19 June and prevented that French force from participating at Waterloo.

Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, 1st Baronet (23 July 1773 – 27 January 1860), was a British Army officer, colonial administrator and astronomer. He served in many important wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including front-line action during the Peninsular War. Upon the recommendation of the Duke of Wellington, with whom Brisbane had served, he was appointed as Governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825.

In the colony, he implemented expansionist land policies that benefited wealthy colonists, while also augmenting the system of convict punishment. A keen astronomer, he built the colony's second observatory and encouraged scientific and agricultural training. Brisbane also declared martial law against the Indigenous Wiradjuri people to quash their resistance to colonisation. The convict settlement of Brisbane established during his tenure was named in his honour and is now the third largest city in Australia.

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845) was a British Whig politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1834. His government enacted the Reform Acts of 1832, which expanded the electorate in the United Kingdom, and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which abolished slavery in the British Empire.

Born into a prominent family in Northumberland, Grey was educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. While travelling in Europe on a Grand Tour, his uncle secured his election as member of parliament (MP) for Northumberland in a 1786 by-election. Grey joined Whig circles in London and was a long-time leader of the reform movement. He briefly served as First Lord of the Admiralty and as foreign secretary in the Ministry of All the Talents from 1806 to 1807 and then remained in opposition for nearly 24 years. He was asked to form a ministry by William IV in 1830, following the resignation of Wellington.

The chancellor of the University of Oxford is the ceremonial head of the university. The office dates from the 13th century.

The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch, originally entitled Chelsea Pensioners Receiving the London Gazette Extraordinary of Thursday, June 22, 1815, Announcing the Battle of Waterloo, is an oil painting by David Wilkie, commissioned by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in August 1816.

It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1822 at Somerset House, where it was so popular that a rail was installed to protect it from the thronging crowds. This was the first time that a rail was needed at the Royal Academy exhibition. The painting was retained by the Duke of Wellington and his descendants, it remains part of the Wellington Collection at Apsley House, but is now on loan to the National Gallery, London.