Peel 2
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Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet FRS (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–1835) and twice as Home Secretary (1822–1827 and 1828–1830). He is regarded as the father of modern British policing, owing to his founding of the Metropolitan Police Service. Peel was one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party.
The son of a wealthy textile manufacturer and politician, Peel was the first prime minister from an industrial business background. He earned a double first in classics and mathematics from Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the House of Commons in 1809, and became a rising star in the Tory Party. Peel entered the Cabinet as Home Secretary (1822–1827), where he reformed and liberalised the criminal law and created the modern police force, leading to a new type of officer known in tribute to him as "bobbies" and "peelers".
After a brief period out of office he returned as Home Secretary under his political mentor the Duke of Wellington (1828–1830), also serving as Leader of the House of Commons. Initially, a supporter of continued legal discrimination against Catholics, Peel reversed himself and supported the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 and the 1828 repeal of the Test Act, claiming that "though emancipation was a great danger, civil strife was a greater danger".[1]
After being in Opposition from 1830 to 1834, he became Prime Minister in November 1834. Peel issued the Tamworth Manifesto (December 1834), laying down the principles upon which the modern British Conservative Party is based. His first ministry was a minority government, dependent on Whig support and with Peel serving as his own Chancellor of the Exchequer. After only four months, his government collapsed and he served as Leader of the Opposition during Melbourne's second government (1835–1841). Peel became Prime Minister again after the 1841 general election. His second government ruled for five years. He cut tariffs to stimulate trade, replacing the lost revenue with a 3% income tax. He played a central role in making free trade a reality and set up a modern banking system.
His government's major legislation included the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, the Income Tax Act 1842, the Factories Act 1844 and the Railway Regulation Act 1844. Peel's government was weakened by anti-Catholic sentiment following the controversial increase in the Maynooth Grant of 1845. After the outbreak of the Great Irish Famine, his decision to join with Whigs and Radicals to repeal the Corn Laws led to his resignation as Prime Minister in 1846. Peel remained an influential MP and leader of the Peelite faction until his death in 1850.
Peel often started from a traditional Tory position in opposition to a measure, then reversed his stance and became the leader in supporting liberal legislation. This happened with the Test Act, Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Act, income tax and, most notably, the repeal of the Corn Laws. Historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote: "Peel was in the first rank of 19th-century statesmen. He carried Catholic Emancipation; he repealed the Corn Laws; he created the modern Conservative Party on the ruins of the old Toryism."[2]
Early life
Peel was born at Chamber Hall, Bury, Lancashire, to the industrialist and parliamentarian Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet, and his wife Ellen Yates. His father was one of the richest textile manufacturers of the early Industrial Revolution.[3] The family moved from Lancashire to Drayton Manor near Tamworth, Staffordshire; the manor house has since been demolished, and the site occupied by Drayton Manor Theme Park.[4]
Peel received his early education from a clergyman tutor in Bury and at a clergyman's local school in Tamworth.[1] He may also have attended Bury Grammar School or Hipperholme Grammar School, though evidence for either is anecdotal rather than textual.[5] He started at Harrow School in February 1800.[6]
At Harrow, he was a contemporary of Lord Byron, who recalled of Peel that "we were on good terms" and that "I was always in scrapes, and he never".[7] On Harrow's Speech Day in 1804, Peel and Byron acted part of Virgil's Aeneid, Peel playing Turnus and Byron playing Latinus.[1][8]
Christ Church, Oxford, which Peel attended 1805–1808, graduating with a double first. He was later MP for the university, 1817–1829.
In 1805, Peel matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford.[9] His tutor was Charles Lloyd, later Regius Professor of Divinity,[10] on Peel's recommendation appointed Bishop of Oxford.[11] In 1808 Peel became the first Oxford student to take a double first in Classics and Mathematics.[12]
Peel was a law student at Lincoln's Inn in 1809.[13] He also held military commissions as a captain in the Manchester Regiment of Militia in 1808,[14] and later as lieutenant in the Staffordshire Yeomanry Cavalry in 1820.[15]
Early political career (1809–1834)
Member of Parliament
Peel entered politics in 1809 at the age of 21, as MP for the Irish rotten borough of Cashel, Tipperary.[16] With a scant 24 electors on the rolls, he was elected unopposed. His sponsor for the election (besides his father) was the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, with whom Peel's political career would be entwined for the next 25 years. Peel made his maiden speech at the start of the 1810 session, when he was chosen by Prime Minister Spencer Perceval to second the reply to the king's speech.[17] His speech was a sensation, famously described by the Speaker, Charles Abbot, as "the best first speech since that of William Pitt".[18]
Peel changed constituency twice, becoming one of the two Members for Chippenham in 1812, and then one of those for Oxford University in 1817.[19]
In 1810, Peel was appointed an Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies; his Secretary of State was Lord Liverpool. When Lord Liverpool formed a government in 1812, Peel was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland.[1] The Peace Preservation Act of 1814 authorised the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to appoint additional magistrates in a county in a state of disturbance, who were authorised to appoint paid special constables (later called "peelers"[20]). Peel thus laid the basis for the Royal Irish Constabulary.[21]
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Economic and financial reforms
Peel finally had a chance to head a majority government following the election of July 1841.[61] Peel came to office during an economic recession which had seen a slump in world trade and a budget deficit of £7.5 million run up by the Whigs. Confidence in banks and businesses was low, and a trade deficit existed.
To raise revenue Peel's 1842 budget saw the re-introduction of the income tax,[62] removed previously at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The rate was 7d in the pound, or just under 3 per cent. The money raised was more than expected and allowed for the removal and reduction of over 1,200 tariffs on imports including the controversial sugar duties.[63] It was also in the 1842 budget that the repeal of the corn laws was first proposed.[64] It was defeated in a Commons vote by a margin of 4:1.
The economic historian Charles Read has analysed Peel's economic policies as:
(i) Fixing the value of British currency to a gold standard, with the paper pound currency freely convertible to gold.
(ii) A limited banknote supply based on a fixed relationship to the gold reserve.
(iii) Free movement of bullion flows from 1819 and lower import tariffs on food and raw materials from 1842 (often loosely referred to as free trade).
(iv) Control of interest rates and a balanced budget in order to reduce the national debt.[65]
The Opium War
Further information: First Opium War
The Signing of the Treaty of Nanking. A Oil painting depicting the Treaty of Nanking, which officially ended the First Opium War between Britain and China.
In 1838, before Peel became prime minister, there have been growing tensions between the British East India Company and the Chinese Empire during the past years over the importation and trade of opium, which had been occurring for nearly a century. And when the trade of this particular product, due to it being smuggled unlawfully by merchants, it become a serious political and economic problem, was it was largely controversial. During the same year, opium became prohibited and made illegal by the Chinese imperial government under the Daoguang Emperor.
And as a result, the British government saw this as an offence against free trade and against British merchant's rights so war began in 1839. In 1842, the time by when Peel became Prime Minister, the war still continued with numerous British military successes against the Chinese navy and when Peel continued the British interests in the war in China, linked to the opium commerce, was able to guide the war to a successful end by signing on 29 August 1842 the Treaty of Nanking which effectively ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China. It concluded with China's disastrous military defeat, which led to the Chinese ceding of the island of Hong Kong to the British and agreeing to more economic openness, which ultimately weakened the Qing regime and imperial influence during the following decades.[66]
Factory Act
Peel's promise of modest reform was held to, and the second most famous bill of this ministry, while "reforming" in 21st-century eyes, was in fact aimed at the reformers themselves, with their constituency among the new industrial rich. The Factory Act 1844 acted more against these industrialists than it did against the traditional stronghold of the Conservatives, the landed gentry, by restricting the number of hours that children and women could work in a factory and setting rudimentary safety standards for machinery.[67] This was a continuation of his own father's work as an MP, as the elder Robert Peel was most noted for the reform of working conditions during the first part of the 19th century. Helping him was Lord Shaftesbury, a British MP who also established the coal mines act.
In 1843 Peel was the target of a failed assassination attempt; a criminally insane Scottish woodturner named Daniel M'Naghten stalked him for several days before, on 20 January, killing Peel's personal secretary Edward Drummond thinking he was Peel,[68] which led to the formation of the controversial criminal defence of insanity.[69]
Corn Laws
Main article: Corn Laws
The 1815 Corn Laws, first introduced by the Tory government of Lord Liverpool, the then Prime Minister. This law was made to amend the laws for regulating the importation of corn. This act was still in effect by the time Peel became prime minister himself in 1841.
The most notable act of Peel's second ministry, however, was the one that would bring it down.[70] Peel moved against the landholders by repealing the Corn Laws, which supported agricultural revenues by restricting grain imports.[71] This radical break with Conservative protectionism was triggered by the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849).[72] Tory agriculturalists were sceptical of the extent of the problem,[73] and Peel reacted slowly to the famine, famously stating in October 1846 (already in opposition): "There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable".[74]
His own party failed to support the bill, but it passed with Whig and Radical support. On the third reading of Peel's Bill of Repeal (Importation Act 1846) on 15 May, MPs voted 327 votes to 229 (a majority of 98) to repeal the Corn Laws. On 25 June the Duke of Wellington persuaded the House of Lords to pass it. On that same night Peel's Irish Coercion Bill was defeated in the Commons by 292 to 219 by "a combination of Whigs, Radicals, and Tory protectionists".[75] Following this, on 29 June 1846, Peel resigned as prime minister.[76]
Though he knew repealing the laws would mean the end of his ministry, Peel decided to do so.[77] It is possible that Peel merely used the Irish Famine as an excuse to repeal the Corn Laws as he had been an intellectual convert to free trade since the 1820s. Blake points out that if Peel had been convinced that total repeal was necessary to stave off the famine, he would have enacted a bill that brought about immediate temporary repeal, not permanent repeal over a three-year period of gradual tapering-off of duties.[78] Peel's support for free trade could already be seen in his 1842 and 1845 budgets;[79] in late 1842 Graham wrote to Peel that "the next change in the Corn Laws must be to an open trade" while arguing that the government should not tackle the issue.[80] Speaking to the cabinet in 1844, Peel argued that the choice was the maintenance of the 1842 Corn Law or total repeal.[81]
The historian Boyd Hilton argued that Peel knew from 1844 he was going to be deposed as the Conservative leader. Many of his MPs had taken to voting against him, and the rupture within the party between liberals and paternalists, which had been so damaging in the 1820s but masked by the issue of parliamentary reform in the 1830s, was brought to the surface over the Corn Laws. Hilton's hypothesis is that Peel wished to be deposed on a liberal issue so that he might later lead a Peelite/Whig/Liberal alliance. Peel was magnanimous towards Irish famine and permitted quick settlements of disputes at frontiers in India and America ( Treaty of Amritsar (1846) on 16 March 1846 and Oregon Treaty on 15 June 1846) in order to repeal Corn Laws on 29 June 1846.[82][83]
As an aside in reference to the repeal of the Corn Laws, Peel managed to keep minimum casualties of Irish Famine in its first year, Peel did make some moves to subsidise the purchase of food for the Irish, but this attempt was small and had little tangible effect. In the age of laissez-faire,[84] government taxes were small, and subsidies or direct economic interference was almost nonexistent. That subsidies were actually given was very much out of character for the political times; his successor, Lord John Russell, received more criticism than Peel on Irish policy, the worst year being 1847, despite all of Peel's efforts, his reform programs had little effect on the situation in Ireland.[85] Russell could not manage public distribution system during Irish Famine even though subsidized food from USA was made available in Ireland. The repeal of the Corn Laws became more political than humanitarian.[86]
Later career and death
Peel did, however, retain a hard core of supporters, known as Peelites,[87] and at one point in 1849 was actively courted by the Whig/Radical coalition. He continued to stand on his conservative principles, however, and refused. Nevertheless, he was influential on several important issues, including the furtherance of British free trade with the repeal of the Navigation Acts.[88] Peel was a member of the committee which controlled the House of Commons Library, and on 16 April 1850 was responsible for passing the motion that controlled its scope and collection policy for the rest of the century.
Peel was thrown from his horse while riding on Constitution Hill in London on 29 June 1850. The horse stumbled on top of him, and he died three days later on 2 July at the age of 62 due to a broken collarbone rupturing his subclavian vessels.[89]
His Peelite followers, led by Lord Aberdeen and William Gladstone, went on to fuse with the Whigs as the Liberal Party.[90]
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Knowledge Web Content (see main node)
NAME: Peel, Sir Robert
ACHIEVEMENTS: Prime Minister of Britain. Set up first police force in Britain
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Occasionally called Orange Peel
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: February 5, 1788, Bury, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH /AGE AT DEATH: July 2, 1850, London. Aged 62
DISCIPLINE: Statesman
FIELD: Politics
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: Robert Peel, wealthy cotton manufacturer, MP, and baronet; and Ellen Yates, daughter of wealthy partner in cotton manufacturing
SIBLINGS: None of note
SPOUSE: Julia Floyd
CHILDREN: Robert, Frederick (Chief Railway Commissioner), William, Arthur
(Speaker House of Commons), two daughters, one son died in infancy
EDUCATION: Harrow School, England
MAJOR WORK: None
LIFE AND TIMES:
In 1800, Peel went to Harrow School , where contemporaries included the future poet <school-fellow was> Byron*. In I804, Peel went to live with his father in London, where he spent a lot of time at the House of Commons, where <knew> Pitt* and Charles Fox were among the luminaries.
After Oxford, in 1809, when Peel was 21, his father bought him a Tory Parliamentary seat in Cashel, Tipperary, Ireland to which he was recommended for this seat by Arthur Wellsley (later <helped by> Duke of Wellington*). It was a so-called "rotten" borough" with only 24 voters, and no election was held. In 1810, Peel was made Under-Secretary for War and the Colonies, responsible for organizing military operations against the French.
After Prime Minister Spenser Percival was murdered in 1812, Liverpool succeeded him and Peel became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Peel also was in charge of law and order. The Irish radical Daniel O'Connell was causing much unrest and had set up the Catholic Board to fight for political rights. It was O'Connell who first used the term "Orange Peel," a reference to Peel's Protestant religion. Peel eventually felt forced to suppress the Catholic Board and to establish the Royal Irish Constabulary.
At 31, in 1819, Peel brought to England a system of metallic currency, arguing that paper currency caused reductions in foreign exchanges and a rise in the price of gold, resulting in a depreciated currency. The Currency Act (known as Peel's Act) decreed that Britain should go back to the Gold Standard. This established what was to become
the dominant financial wisdom of the Victorian age.
From this time to the end of his life, Peel was associated with what came to be called "economic liberalism", the theory that giving business and industry more freedom to increase profits would improve the lot of all society.
1822, as Home Secretary Peel did significant work in the areas of law, prisons, trade unions and police. In his five-year tenure, he succeeded in bringing about the repeal of most laws that imposed extraordinary restrictions on liberty. In the area of trade unions, he fought for the reinstatement of the law that made them legal. Since 1799, when William Pitt had made unions illegal, followers of the philosopher <work related to> Jeremy Bentham* had campaigned to reinstate them.
Aware that law and order were a local matter in England , Peel set up committees to look at the need for <set up> police*. London, with a population 10 times that of any other English city, had special problems. In 1829, Peel's Metropolitan Police Act established new professional police commissioners for London, Britain's first professional preventive police force.
In the 1834 election, the Tories lost many seats, and Peel was made Prime Minister of a minority government. After a brief "100 days" he resigned because of a defeat in the House. But he also felt he lacked the support to carry out his plan to bring in Parliamentary reforms gradually.. He never gave up his view that the executive government should remain in the hands of an elite.
In 1834, Peel issued the Tamworth Manifesto, which pledged modest reform. The term "Conservative", rather than "Tory", was now gaining currency.
In 1836, MP Sir John Welsh made a distinction between Conservatives and Tories, saying the Conservative party included all those who are attached to the constitution and who believe it is "threatened with subversion by the encroachments of democracy".
In 1839, <knew> Queen Victoria* offered Peel the premiership but he refused.
In 1841, as Prime Minister of a majority government, Peel appointed <gave appointment to> Gladstone* his first government office, making him deputy to the President of the Board of Trade. Under Peel, in 1842, income taxes were introduced for the first time since 1816. In 1844, the Factory Act reduced hours of work in textile factories, but Peel was not in favor of the legislation, deploring the fact that such a measure would deprive textile owners of seven weeks' work per year.
In 1845, Peel's proposal to triple a grant to the Irish Roman Catholic seminary at Maynooth, where most Irish clergy were educated, caused great controversy and resulted in the resignation of William Gladstone. Peel was flabbergasted at the opposition, which also included <opposed by> Disraeli* .
In 1845, at the beginning of Irish Potato Famine, Peel committed cabinet to repeal of the Corn Laws. These laws protected corn-growers and kept the price of bread artificially high. The government said repeal was necessary because of the potato famine, but the true reason was that the high and inconsistent price of bread was causing unrest.
An Anti-Corn Law League (a.k.a. the <disapproved of> Free Trade Movement*), led by <opposed> Cobden*, was formed, but Peel disapproved of it, seeing it as a threat to the established order.
Peel was an "intellectual convert" to free trade and a follower of <follower of> Adam Smith*, the political theorist who published "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776. Smith maintained that economic growth depended on freedom from trade restrictions.
In 1846 Peel was defeated over a bill and resigned. On June 29, 1850, while riding on Constitution Hill. Peel's horse threw him and he died.
ASSESSMENT: One of the most renowned Prime Ministers of the 19th century, and probably the most successful in terms of legislative achievement.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Knew <knew> Somerville*
A friend of <a pal of> Burbett-Coutts*
ONELINER: Robert Peel, British Prime Minister who set up the police
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Eric J. Evans; Sir Robert Peel. Statesmanship, Power and Part; Routledge, London and New York, 1991.
Gash, Norman; Mr Secretary Peel; Longman, London and New York, 1985