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PEEL, SIR ROBERT, BART
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See also:PEEL, See also:SIR See also:ROBERT, See also:BART . (1788-1850), See also:English statesman, was See also:born on the 5th of See also:February 1788 at Chamber See also: His speeches show that, in addition to his academical knowledge, he was well versed in English literature, in See also:history, and in the principles of See also:law, in See also:order to study which he entered at See also:Lincoln's See also:Inn. But while See also:reading hard he did not neglect to develop his tall and vigorous See also:frame, and, though he lost his See also:life partly through his See also:bad See also:riding, he was always a See also:good shot and an untiring See also: It is said that even then his father had discerned in him a tendency to think for himself, and told Lord See also:Liverpool that to make sure of his support it would be well to See also:place him See also:early in See also:harness. At all events he began See also:official life in 1810 as Lord Liverpool's under-secretary for war and the colonies under the See also:administration of Perceval. In 1812 he was transferred by Lord Liverpool to the more important but unhappy See also:post of secretary for See also:Ireland. There he was engaged till 1818 in maintaining English ascendancy over a country heaving with discontent, teeming with See also:conspiracy, and ever ready to burst into See also:rebellion. A See also:middle course between Irish parties was impossible, and Peel plied the established engines of See also:coercion and patronage with a vigorous hand. At the same See also:time, it was his frequent See also:duty to combat Grattan, Plunkett, Canning and the other See also:movers and See also:advocates of See also:Roman See also:Catholic emancipation in the House of Commons. He, however, always spoke on this question with a command of See also:temper wonderful in hot youth, with the utmost See also:courtesy towards his opponents, and with warm expressions of sympathy and even of admiration for the Irish See also:people. He also, thus early, did his best to See also:advocate and promote See also:joint education in Ireland as a means of reconciling sects and raising the character of the people. But his greatest service to Ireland as secretary was the institution of the See also:regular Irish constabulary, nicknamed after him " Peelers," for the See also:protection of life and See also:property in a country where both were insecure. His moderation of See also:tone did not See also:save him from the violent abuse of O'Connell, whom he was See also:ill advised enough to See also:challenge—an affair which covered them both with ridicule. In 1817 he obtained the highest parliamentary distinction of the Tory party by being elected member for the university of Oxford —an See also:honour for which he was chosen in preference to Canning on See also:account of his hostility to Roman Catholic emancipation, Lord See also:Eldon lending him his best support. In the following year he resigned the Irish secretaryship, of which he had See also:long been very weary, and remained out of See also:office till 1821. But he still supported the ministers, though in the affair of See also:Queen See also:Caroline he stood aloof, disapproving some steps taken by the See also:government, and sensitive to popular See also:opinion; and when Canning retired on account of this affair Peel declined Lord Liverpool's invitation to take the vacant place in the See also:cabinet. During this break in his See also:tenure of office he had some time for reflection, which there was enough in the aspect of the political See also:world to move. But early office had done its See also:work. It had given him excellent habits of business, great knowledge and a high position; but it had See also:left him somewhat stiff and punctilious, too See also:cold and reserved and over anxious for formal justifications when he might well have left his conduct to the See also:judgment of men of honour and the See also:heart of the people. At the same time he was no See also:pedant in business; in corresponding on political subjects he loved to throw off official forms and communicate his views with the freedom of private See also:correspondence; and where his confidence was given, it was given without reserve. At this See also:period he was made chairman of the See also:bullion committee on the See also:death of Horner. He was chosen for this important office by Huskisson, See also:Ricardo and their See also:fellow-economists, who saw in him a mind open to conviction, though he owed hereditary See also:allegiance to Pitt's See also:financial policy, and had actually voted with his Pittite father for a See also:resolution of Lord Liverpool's government asserting that See also:Bank of England notes were See also:equivalent to legal See also:coin. The choice proved judicious. Peel was converted to the currency doctrines of the economists, and proclaimed his See also:con-version in a great speech on the 24th of May 1819, in which he moved and carried four resolutions embodying the recommendations of the bullion committee in favour of a return to See also:cash payments. This laid the See also:foundation of his financial reputation, and his co-operation with the economists tended to give a liberal turn to his commercial principles. In the course he took he somewhat diverged from his party, and particularly from his father, who remained faithful to Pitt's depreciated See also:paper, and between whom and his schismatic son a See also:solemn and touching passage occurred in the debate. The author of the Cash Payments See also:Act had often to defend his policy, and he did so with vigour. The act is sometimes said to have been hard on debtors, including the nation as debtor, because it required debts to be paid in cash which had been contracted in depreciated paper; and Peel, as See also:heir to a great fundholder, was even charged with being biased by his See also:personal interests. But it is answered that the Bank Restriction Acts, under which the depreciated paper had circulated, themselves contained a See also:provision for a return to cash payments six months after See also:peace. In 182o Peel married Julia, daughter of See also:General Sir John See also:Floyd, who See also:bore him five sons and two daughters. The writers who have most severely censured Sir Robert Peel as a public man have dwelt on the virtues and happiness of his private and domestic life. He was not only a most loving See also:husband and father but a true and warm-hearted friend. In See also:Whitehall Gardens or at Drayton Manor he gathered some of the most distinguished intellects of the day. He indulged in See also:free and cheerful talk, and sought the conversation of men of See also:science; he took delight in See also:art, and was a great See also:collector of pictures; he was fond of farming and agricultural improvements; he actively promoted useful See also:works and the See also:advancement of knowledge; heloved making his See also:friends, dependants, tenants and neighbours happy. And, cold as he was in public, few men could be more See also:bright and genial in private than Sir Robert Peel. In 1821 Peel consented to strengthen the enfeebled See also:ministry of Lord Liverpool by becoming See also:home secretary; and in that capacity he had again to undertake the office of coercing the growing discontent in Ireland, of which he remained the real See also:administrator, and had again to See also:lead in the House of Commons the opposition to the rising cause of Roman Catholic emancipation. In 1825, being defeated on the Roman Catholic question in the House of Commons, he wished to resign office, but Lord Liverpool pleaded that his resignation would break up the government. He found a congenial task in reforming and humanizing the criminal law, especially those parts of it which related to offences against property and offences punishable by death. The five acts in which Peel accomplished this great work, as well as the great speech of the 9th of March 1826, in which he opened the subject to the house, will, See also:form one of the most solid and enduring monuments of his fame. Criminal law reform was the reform of Romilly and Mackintosh, from the hands of the latter of whom Peel received it. But the masterly bills in which it was embodied were the bills of Peel—not himself a creative See also:genius, but, like the founder of his house, a profound appreciator of other men's creations, and unrivalled in the power of giving them practical and See also:complete effect. In 1827 the Liverpool ministry was broken up by the fatal illness of its See also:chief, and under the new premier, George Canning, Peel, like the See also:duke of See also:Wellington and other high Tory members of Lord Liverpool's cabinet, refused to serve. Canning and Peel were rivals; but we need not interpret as See also:mere personal rivalry that which was certainly, in part at least, a real difference of connexion and opinion. Canning took a Liberal See also:line, and was supported by many of the Whigs; the seceders were Tories, and it is difficult to see how their position in Canning's cabinet could have been otherwise than a false one. Separation led to public coolness and occasional approaches to bitterness on both sides in debate. But there seems no ground for exaggerated complaints against Peel's conduct. Canning himself said to a friend that " Peel was the only man who had behaved decently towards him." Their private intercourse remained uninterrupted to the end; and Canning's son afterwards entered public life under the auspices of Peel. The See also:charge of having urged Roman Catholic emancipation on Lord Liverpool in 1825, and opposed Canning for being a friend to it in 1827, made against Sir Robert Peel in the fierce See also:corn-law debates of 1846, has been withdrawn by those who made it. In See also:January 1828, after Canning's death, the duke of Welling-ton formed a Tory government, in which Peel was home secretary and leader of the House of Commons. This cabinet, Tory as it was, did not include the impracticable Lord Eldon, and did include Huskisson and three more friends of Canning. Its policy was to endeavour to stave off the growing demand for organic See also:change by administrative reform, and by lightening the burdens of the people. The See also:civil See also:list was retrenched with an unsparing hand, the public See also:expenditure was reduced See also:lower than it had been since the Revolutionary war, and the import of corn was permitted under a sliding See also:scale of duties. Peel also introduced into See also:London the improved See also:system of See also:police which he had previously established with so much success in Ireland. Buc the See also:tide ran too strong to be thus headed. First the government were compelled, after a defeat in the House of Commons, to acquiesce in the See also:repeal of the Test and See also:Corporation Acts, Peel bringing over their High Church supporters, as far as he could. Immediately afterwards the question of Roman Catholic emancipation was brought to a crisis by the See also:election of O'Connell for the See also:county of See also:Clare. In See also:August Peel expressed to the duke of Wellington his conviction that the question must be settled. He wrote that out of office he would co-operate in the See also:settlement but in his judgment it should be committed to other hands than his. To this the duke assented, but in January 1829, owing to the declared opinions of the See also: His friends put him again in nomination, but he was defeated by Sir R. H. See also:Inglis. He took See also:refuge in the close borough of See also:Westbury, whence he afterwards removed to Tamworth, for which he sat till his death. Catholic emancipation was forced on Peel by circumstances; but it was mainly owing to him that the measure was complete, and based upon equality of civil rights. This great concession, however, did not save the Tory government. The See also:French Revolution of See also:July 183o gave fresh strength to the See also:movement against them, though, schooled by the past, they promptly recognized King See also: Sir Robert Peel's resistance to the Reform See also:Bill won back for him the allegiance of his party. His opposition was resolute but it was temperate, and once only he betrayed the suppressed See also:fire of his temper, in the See also:historical debate of the 22nd of See also:April 1831, when his speech was broken off by the arrival of the king to dissolve the parliament which had thrown out reform. He refused to join the duke of Wellington in the desperate enterprise of forming a Tory government at the height of the See also:storm, when the See also:Grey ministry had gone out on the refusal of the king to promise them an unlimited creation of peers. By this conduct he secured for his party the full benefit of the reaction which he no doubt knew was sure to ensue. The general election of 1832, after the passing of the Reform Bill, left him with barely 150 followers in the House of Commons; but this handful rapidly swelled under his management into the great Conservative party. He frankly accepted the Reform Act as irrevocable, taught his party to See also:register instead of despairing, appealed to the intelligence of the middle classes, whose new-born power he appreciated, steadily supported the Whig ministers against the Radicals and O'Connell, and gained every moral See also:advantage which the most dignified and constitutional See also:tactics could afford. To this policy, and to the great parliamentary See also:powers of its author, it was mainly due that, in the course of a few years, the Conservatives were as strong in the reformed parliament as the Tories had been in the unreformed. It is vain to deny the praise of genius to such a leader, though the skill of a See also:pilot who steered for many years over such See also:waters may sometimes have resembled See also:craft. But the duke of Wellington's emphatic eulogy on him was, " Of all the men I ever knew, he had the greatest regard for truth." The duke might have added that his own question, " How is the king's government to be carried on in a reformed parliament ?" was mainly solved by the temperate and constitutional policy of Sir Robert Peel, and by his personal See also:influence on the debates and proceedings of the House of Commons during the years which followed the Reform Act.
In 1834, on the dismissal of the See also:Melbourne ministry, power came to Sir Robert Peel before he expected or desired it. He hurried from See also:Rome at the See also:call of the duke of Wellington, whosesagacious modesty yielded him the first place, and became See also:prime See also:minister, holding the two offices of first lord of the See also:treasury and See also:chancellor of the See also:exchequer. He vainly sought to include in his cabinet two See also:recent seceders from the Whigs, Lord See also:Stanley and Sir See also: A See also:dissolution gave him a great increase of strength in the house, but not enough. He was outvoted on the election of the See also:speaker at the opening of the session of 1835, and, after struggling on for six See also:weeks longer, resigned on the question of appropriating part of the revenues of the Church in Ireland to See also:national education. His time had not yet come; but the capacity, See also:energy and resource he displayed in this See also:short tenure of office raised him immensely in the estimation of the house, his party and the country. Of the great See also:budget of practical reforms which he brought forward, the See also:plan for the See also:commutation of See also:tithes, the ecclesiastical See also:commission, and the plan for settling the question of dissenters' marriages bore See also:fruit. From 1835 to 1840 he pursued the same course of patient and far-sighted opposition. In 1837 the Conservative members of the House of Commons gave their leader a See also:grand banquet at See also:Merchant Taylors' Hall, where he proclaimed in a great speech the creed and See also:objects of his party. In 1839, the Whigs having resigned on the See also:Jamaica Bill, he was called on to form a government, and submitted names for a cabinet, but resigned the commission owing to the young queen's persistent refusal to part with any Whig ladies of her bedchamber (see See also:VICTORIA, QUEEN). In 184o he was hurried into a premature motion of want of confidence. But in the following year a similar motion was carried by a See also:majority of one, and the Whigs ventured to See also:appeal to the country. The result was a majority of ninety-one against them on a motion of want of confidence in the autumn of 1841, upon which they resigned, and Sir Robert Peel became first lord of the treasury, with a commanding majority in both Houses of Parliament. The crisis called for a See also:master-hand. The finances were in disorder. For some years there had been a growing deficit, estimated for 1842 at more than two millions, and attempts to See also:supply this by additions to assessed taxes and customs duties had failed. The great financier took till the See also:spring of 1842 to mature his plans. He then boldly supplied the deficit by imposing an income-tax on all incomes above £150 a year. He accompanied this tax with a reform of the See also:tariff, by which prohibitory duties were removed and other duties See also:abated on a vast number of articles of import, especially the raw materials of manufactures and prime articles of See also:food. The increased See also:consumption, as the reformer expected, countervailed the reduction of duty. The income-tax was renewed and the reform of the tariff carried still farther on the same principle in 1845. The result was, in place of a deficit of upwards of two millions, a surplus of five millions in r'845, and the removal of seven millions and a See also:half of taxes up to 1847, not only without loss, but with gain to the See also:ordinary See also:revenue of the country. The prosperous See also:state of the finances and of public affairs also permitted a reduction of the See also:interest on a portion of the national See also:debt, giving a yearly saving at once of £625,000, and ultimately of a million and a See also:quarter to the public. In 1844 another great financial measure, the Bank See also:Charter Act, was passed and, though severely controverted and thrice suspended at a desperate crisis, has ever since regulated the currency of the country. In Ireland O'Connell's agitation for the repeal of the See also:Union had now assumed threatening See also:pro-portions, and verged upon rebellion. The great agitator was prosecuted, with his chief adherents, for conspiracy and See also:sedition; and, though the conviction was quashed for informality, repeal was quelled in its chief. At the same time a healing hand was extended to Ireland. The Charitable Bequests Act gave Roman Catholics a See also:share in the administration of charities and legal power to endow their own See also:religion. The See also:allowance to See also:Maynooth was largely increased, notwithstanding violent Protestant opposition. Three queen's colleges, for the higher education of all the youth of Ireland, without distinction of religion, were founded, notwithstanding violent opposition, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. The principle of See also:toleration once accepted, was thoroughly carried out. The last remnants of the penal See also:laws
were swept from the See also:statute-See also:book, and See also:justice was extended to the Roman Catholic Church in See also:Canada and See also:Malta. In the same spirit acts were passed for clearing from doubt Irish Presbyterian marriages, for settling the titles of a large number of dissenters' chapels in England, and removing the municipal disabilities of the See also:Jews. The See also: It had found disaster and disgrace in See also:Afghanistan. It speedily ended the war there, and in See also:India the invading Sikhs were destroyed upon the See also:Sutlej. The sore and dangerous questions with France, touching the right of See also:search, the war in See also:Morocco, and the See also:Tahiti affair, and with the See also:United States touching the See also:Maine boundary and the See also:Oregon territory, were settled by negotiation. Yet there were malcontents in Sir Robert Peel's party. The Young Englanders disliked him because he had hoisted the See also:flag of Conservatism instead of Toryism on the morrow of the Reform Bill. The strong philanthropists and Tory Chartists disliked him because he was a strict economist and an upholder of the new poor law. But the fatal question was protection. That question was being fast brought to a crisis by public opinion and the See also:Anti-Corn-Law See also:League. Sir Robert Peel had been recognized in 1841 by See also:Cobden as a Free Trader, and after experience in office he had become in principle more and more so. Since his See also:accession to power he had lowered the duties of the sliding scale, and thereby caused the See also:secession from the cabinet of the duke of See also:Buckingham. He had alarmed the farmers by admitting See also:foreign See also:cattle and See also:meat under his new tariff, and by admitting See also:Canadian corn. He had done his best in his speeches to put the See also:maintenance of the corn laws on See also:low ground, and to wean the landed interest from their reliance on protection. The approach of the Irish See also:famine in 1845 turned decisively the wavering See also:balance. When at first Sir Robert proposed to his cabinet the revision of the corn laws, Lord Stanley and the duke of See also:Buccleuch dissented, and Sir Robert resigned. But Lord John Russell failed to form a new government. Sir Robert again came into office; and now, with the consent of all the cabinet but Lord Stanley, who retired, he, in a great speech on the 27th of January 1846, brought the repeal of the corn laws before the House of Commons. In the long and fierce debate that ensued he was assailed, both by political and personal enemies, with the most virulent invective, which he bore with his wonted calmness, and to which he made no retorts. His measure was carried; but immediately afterwards the offended protectionists, led by Lord George See also:Bentinck and See also:Benjamin Disraeli, coalesced with the Whigs, and threw him out on the Irish Coercion Bill. He went home from his defeat, escorted by a great See also:crowd, who uncovered as he passed, and he immediately resigned. So See also:fell a Conservative government which would otherwise have probably ended only with the life of its chief. Though out of office he was not out of power. He had " lost a party, but won a nation." The Whig ministry which succeeded him leant much on his support, with which he never taxed them. He joined them in carrying forward free-See also:trade principles by the repeal of the See also:navigation laws. He helped them to promote the principle of religious See also:liberty by the bill for the emancipation of the Jews. One important measure was his own. While in office he had probed, by the See also:Devon commission of inquiry, the sores of Ireland connected with the ownership and occupation ofland. In 1849, in a speech on the Irish Poor Laws, he first suggested, and in the next year he aided in establishing, a commission to facilitate the See also:sale of estates in a hopeless state of encumbrance. The Encumbered Estates Act made no attempt, like later legislation, to secure by law the uncertain customary rights of Irish tenants, but it transferred the See also:land from ruined landlords to solvent owners capable of performing the duties of property towards the people. On the 28th of See also:June r85o Sir Robert Peel made a great speech on the See also:Greek question against Lord Palmerston's foreign policy of interference. This speech was thought to show that if necessary he would return to office. It was his last. On the following day he was thrown from his See also:horse on Constitution See also: They will enumerate the great practical improvements and the great acts of legislative justice of those days, and See also:note how large a share Sir Robert Peel had, if not in originating, in giving thorough practical effect to all. They will reflect that as a parliamentary statesman he could not govern without a party, and that it is difficult to govern at once for a party and for the whole people. They will think of his ardent love of his country, of his See also:abstinence from intrigue, violence and See also:faction, of his boundless labour through a long life devoted to the public service. Whether he was a See also:model of statesmanship may be doubted. See also:Models of statesmanship are rare, if by a model of statesmanship is meant a great administrator and party leader, a great political philosopher and a great See also:independent orator, all in one. But if the question is whether he was a ruler loved and trusted by the English people there is no arguing against the tears of a nation. Those who wish to know more of him will consult his own See also:posthumous See also:Memoirs (1856), edited by his See also:literary executors See also:Earl See also:Stanhope and See also:Viscount See also:Cardwell; his private correspondence, edited by C. S. See also:Parker (1891—1899) ; the four volumes of his speeches; a See also:sketch of his life and character by Sir See also:Lawrence Peel (186o); an historical sketch by Lord Dalling (1874); See also:Guizot's Sir Robert Peel (1857) ; Kiinzel's Leben and Reden Sir Robert Peel's (1851) ; Disraeli's Life of Lord George Bentinck (1858); See also:Morley's Life of Cobden; mono-graphs by F. C. Montague (1888), J. R. Thursfeld (1891), and the earl of See also:Rosebery (1899); Peel and O'Connell, by Lord See also:Eversley; the Life of Sir J. Graham (1907), by C. S. Parker; Lord Stanmore's Life of Lord Aberdeen (1893); and the general histories of the time. (C. S. P.) Four of Sir Robert's five sons attained distinction. The eldest, SIR ROBERT PEEL (1822-1895), who became the 3rd See also:baronet on his father's death, was educated at See also:Harrow and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was in the See also:diplomatic service from 1844 to 1850, when he succeeded his father as member of parliament for Tamworth, and he was chief secretary to the lord-See also:lieutenant of Ireland from 1861 to 1865. He represented See also:Tam-See also:worth until the general election of 188o; in 1884 he became member for See also:Huntingdon and in 1885 for Blackburn, but after 1886 he ceased to sit in the House of Commons. Sir Robert described himself as a Liberal-Conservative, but in his later years he opposed the policy of See also:Gladstone, although after 1886 he championed the cause of home See also:rule for Ireland. In 1871 he sold his father's collection of pictures to the National See also:Gallery for £75,000, and in his later life he was troubled by financial difficulties. Sir Robert was interested in racing, and was known on the the most See also:building church of the See also:Oval See also:turf as Mr-F. See also:Robinson. He died in London on the 9th of May 1895, and was succeeded as 4th baronet by his son, Sir Robert Peel (b. 1867). Additional information and CommentsThis article is wonderful, I trust many shall realize the vast investment Sir Robert Peel made during his brief time here on earth. Remarkably, this caring man continues to reach beyond his place of rest and still continues to touch and motivate others to truely care about others. I have in my own care a set of books Sir Robert had in his personal and private collection. I an blessed to own them and will gladly share their beauty with others, if the request is made known.Thankyou very much for sharing your most treasured article on this wonderful man.You are administring a great service to many who are made aware of Sir Robert Peel's rich life. With Warm Regards, Rebekah M. Peters
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