MR. JONES, I BELIEVE?

George Jones was a Keeper of the Royal Academy and a British painter who specialized in military subjects, himself having been a military man who served with the army of occupation in Paris after the Battle of Waterloo. Afterwards, Jones went on to exhibit five paintings of the Battle at the Royal Academy and six more at the British Institution, thus earning himself the nickname of “Waterloo Jones.” However, the thing he was most proud of was his resemblance to the Duke of Wellington.

Jones used to tell anyone who’d listen that he was often mistaken for Wellington and word of this made it’s way to the man himself. “That’s funny,” Wellington was to have replied, “no one ever mistakes me for Mr. Jones!” But there is anecdotal evidence that this did, in fact, occur on at least one occasion when a man approached the Duke and said, “Mr. Jones, I believe?” In true Wellington fashion, the Duke was purported to have shot back, “If you believe that, you’ll believe anything!”