Soon after the details of Wellington's victory became known, calls were made for suitable national commemorations. In the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh submitted a motion for a national monument to be erected to those who fell at Waterloo.

In the subsequent debate, tributes were paid to the two MPs killed in the battle, and it was decided that monuments to them should be placed in St Paul's Cathedral. Erected in the 1820s, these were joined by Wellington's tomb when he died some three decades later. Despite Castelraegh's original motion being carried unopposed, no national memorial to the fallen of Waterloo was ever created.

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