Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Wellesley, 2nd Earl Cowley (25 August 1834 - 28 February 1895) was an English aristocrat and soldier.

Olivia Cecilia FitzGerald (d. 1885) and Henry Wellesley, 1st Earl Cowley, who served as the British Ambassador to France between 1852 and 1867.

[4] His maternal grandparents were 20th Baroness de Ros and Lord Henry FitzGerald (fourth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster).

He served in the Crimean War in 1855 and the Oudh campaign in India in 1858 for which he was awarded the Order of the Medjidie, 5th Class.

[5] Together, they were the parents of:[4] Lord Cowley died at Draycot House in Wiltshire on 28 February 1895,[7] and was succeeded by his son, Henry.