[ROBERT PEEL, born February 5, 1788, near Bury, Lancashire; died,
London, July 2, 1850; educated at Harrow and Christ Church,
Oxford, B.A., 1808 (double first); Member of Parliament, 1809;
1811, Under-Secretary for the Colonies; 1812-18, Secretary for
Ireland; 1817, Member of Parliament for Oxford University; 1819,
advocated return to specie payment; 1820, married Julia, daughter
of General Sir John Floyd; 1822-27, Home Secretary, Leader of
House of Commons; 1826, proposed reform of Criminal Law; 1828,
Home Secretary and Leader of the House; 1829, proposed Catholic
emancipation; 1834-35, Prime Minister; 1841-46, Prime Minister;
1842, carried Income Tax; 1846, repealed the Corn Laws; 1846-50,
without office.]
When the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, the Duke of Wellington
bluntly declared his conviction that the result would be the
speedy overthrow of the British Constitution. More sagacious
observers than the great field-marshal were of the opinion that a
radical change must ensue, and that the Tory party, long the prop
of Church and Throne, having lost control of legislation in the
House of Commons through the abolition of the close and rotten
boroughs, could never regain the seat of power by electing a
majority of members. That these forebodings and prophecies did
not come true was largely due to the consummate political skill
of Sir Robert Peel.
In reviewing a life so rich in public activity as Peel's it is
impossible to point to any one important question as his
particular contribution to the history of his time. There was
scarcely a single great parliamentary battle in which he did not
bear a hand on one side or the other. Indeed, hostile criticism
has censured him for having in not a few instances carried to
ultimate success the very measures of which, when first proposed,
he had been the stoutest enemy. This is true of the Resumption of
Specie Payments, the Catholic Emancipation Acts, and most notably
of all the repeal of the Corn Laws. The characteristics which
resulted so strangely may be accounted for in part at least by
some knowledge of the early life of the great parliamentary
leader.
The Peels were weavers and printers of calicoes. The father of
the Prime Minister was one of the wealthiest manufacturers in his
generation, a thorough-going Tory, and an ardent admirer of Mr.
Pitt. He was sent to Parliament in 1790, and his support of the
government by his vote there, and by his contribution of fifty
thousand pounds to the war fund, won for him, in 1800, a
baronetcy. There had been Robert Peels before his day, but now
for the first time there was a Sir Robert.
Sir Robert's most loving care was lavished upon the training of
his eldest son and namesake, who from the day of his birth,
February 5, 1788, the patriotic father had prayerfully
consecrated to the service of his country. Many stories are told
of the pains which the great calico-printer bestowed on the lad's
training for a public career. We see the little lad standing on a
table to declaim or recite to his parental mentor, and read of
the rigor of cross-examination to which this lad of twelve was
subjected after hearing a sermon or public address. A current
anecdote represents the doting father as saying, " Bob, you dog,
if you're not prime minister, I'll disinherit you." At Harrow, as
a schoolboy he reflected credit upon his father's training, and
at Christ Church, Oxford, he achieved the unusual honor of a
double first class (classics and mathematics). When he left the
university at the age of twenty-one his father provided him with
a seat in Parliament, and so, with every favoring circumstance of
youth, health, education, friends, and wealth, he began his
eventful career in the House of Commons which was to be the scene
of his best labors until the day of his death.
Old Sir Robert and his son sat on the same side of the House, but
the alert and active mind of the young man could not accept
untested his father's political creed of hide-bound Toryism. The
first question upon which the son and father parted company was
on the subject of the resumption of specie payments, which had
been discontinued in 1797 under the financial stress of the war
with France. In 1811 the two Peels voted together against a
resolution looking toward resumption, but the younger man's mind
was fascinated with the economic aspects of the problem, and half
a dozen years later, when the subject again pressed for
settlement, he brought forward the act which placed England on a
gold basis. The father openly bewailed the son's misguided
course, but Peel's act became the law (1819).
Before he was thirty, the younger Robert Peel had gained a
valuable experience in administrative work by a term of six years
(1812-1818) as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Here, as in the
preparation of his studies at Oxford and of his speeches for the
House of Commons, he was painstaking, methodical, thorough, and
energetic. In fact he applied to the public business the same
sterling qualities which had made his father and grandfather
successful merchants and manufacturers. His most notable reform
in Ireland, which was then in a sad condition of disorder, was
the replacement of military rule by a well-organized civil force
of police, acting under the orders of the magistrates. He favored
a more liberal scheme of popular education for the unhappy
island, but his Tory prejudices stood in the way of relieving the
Catholics of their disabilities. Because of his avowed opposition
to this demand, and his bitter hostility to O'Connell, the
champion of the cause, Mr. Peel--"Orange" Peel, as the Catholic
Irish nicknamed him--had the satisfaction of being returned to
Parliament in 1817 for the University of Oxford, perhaps the most
ultra-Tory constituency in the three kingdoms.
In January, 1822, Peel entered the cabinet of Lord Liverpool as
Home Secretary. From the first he showed that his mind was not
impenetrable to the legal reforms which earnest men had long been
advocating, but to which the Tories had turned a deaf ear. The
reform of the criminal law, which still carried the harsh
statutes of an unquiet age, had been ably championed by Romilly,
Mackintosh, and others, but it was Peel's way first to oppose,
then to admit the principle of the reform, and finally to enact
it into enduring law. On his initiative, in 1823, "nearly one
hundred felonies were removed from the list of capital crimes,
and judges were empowered to withhold the death penalty in all
cases except murder, when the culprit appeared deserving of
mercy." Other acts originating with him consolidated and unified
the vast and complex body of criminal statutes so as to simplify
procedure, and facilitate the ends of justice. Some conception of
his services in this particular may be gained from the fact that
"he secured the repeal of two hundred and seventy-eight acts
relating to the criminal law, embodying their useful provisions
in eight acts."
On Catholic emancipation Peel's process of conversion was slower.
He steadily fought the proposals for relief in the House of
Commons as long as Lord Liverpool lived, and when Canning
succeeded to the premiership (1827), he resigned rather than
serve under a pro-Catholic chief. When the Tories came back to
power under Wellington, in 1828, Peel resumed the Home
Secretaryship, with the leadership of the House of Commons, a
position for which he possessed incomparable qualifications. His
second administration of the home department was distinguished by
a series of radical improvements in the criminal laws. One law
for the punishment of offenses against the person took the place
of fifty-seven existing acts. In 1829 he replaced the ridiculous
London watch with the police force which has served as a model
for many other large cities. Many who speak familiarly of the
blue-coated guardians of the peace as "Bobbies" and "Peelers"
would be surprised to know that these sobriquets constitute a
popular tribute to the name of Robert Peel, the creator of the
model force.
These legal and administrative reforms, beneficent as they were,
were not great party questions like the two others which the
Wellington government had to face, and gained so little credit in
the facing. The Whigs, under John Russell, urged the demand for
the relief of Protestant dissenters from their political
disabilities by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Peel
argued against the change, but it was carried, nevertheless, and
the Tories accepted the measure with the best grace they could
summon. Their resistance to Catholic emancipation cost them more
dearly. O'Connell, master of all the arts of agitation, fanned
the excitement in Ireland into flame. His Catholic Association
made itself heard, and felt, and feared. In June, 1828, a member
of the government standing for election for County Clare was
soundly defeated by O'Connell himself, a man whom the anti-
Catholic laws disqualified from sitting in Parliament. The
government knew not which way to turn, and O'Connell, perceiving
his advantage, lashed his followers to the verge of an
insurrection. This was the question on which George III. had
broken with William Pitt a generation before, and now it was only
by the most vehement arguments, and even by threats of
resignation, that the ministers could obtain his son's consent to
the inevitable. In a speech of four hours' duration Peel
explained the measures to the House of Commons, confessing that
the necessity under which he acted "was the severest blow it had
ever been his lot to experience." The speech was an admission of
defeat, and an elaboration of the measures by which the
government, in the hour of concession, proposed to limit the
"dangerous power of the Roman Catholics." The bill became a law,
and the Irish Catholic members began to sit in Parliament--with
some of the disturbing consequences which no one foresaw better
than Peel himself.
The Wellington ministry barely survived the strain of carrying
Catholic emancipation. The year 1830 found Sir Robert Peel--the
elder baronet having died--the leader of the opposition. In this
character he led his party against the Reform Bills of 1831-32.
Their weak points were mercilessly laid bare, and the excellences
and past glories of the existing system were effectively
displayed. But nothing at that day could stop the progress of
reform, as the King and peers soon learned.
The defeat of the Tories in the first general election under the
Reform Act was overwhelming. They mustered less than one-fourth
of the House of Commons. It seemed to most cool political
observers that the Whigs who now assumed office could not be
displaced for a decade at least. The spirit of change was alive
in all the nations of western Europe, and in England there seemed
to be small need of a political party whose steady resistance to
innovation was relieved only by the exceptions in which the party
had espoused reform in extremity to save its own existence.
Wellington and the rigid Tories of his stripe saw no hope for
their party, and little enough for England in the way along which
she was plunging. Peel, however, was supremely suited to the
times. Bound to the party of Church and Crown by the traditions
of his father, he nevertheless was endowed with a mind which was
not quite dominated by prejudice. The study of facts, the
examination of conflicting claims, the weighing of argument, had
their full effect upon him, and he had the courage of his
convictions. At this juncture, when so much was shifting which
had anchored England to the past, Sir Robert Peel, with his
clear-eyed vision, his trained judgment, his honesty, and his
moderation, formed a rallying point for those Tories who had no
other leader, and attracted to him moderate and enlightened men
of whatever party who feared the unbalanced radicalism of the
day, and who were bent on preserving or conserving the best
elements which remained of the ancient Constitution of England.
From such accretions grew up a party which gradually dropped the
name of Tory and adopted that of Conservative. One of Peel's
biographers, writing of this period as Peel's opportunity, says:
"Since Conservatism, like Liberalism, is an imperishable instinct
in human nature, every society must contain a Conservative party,
and such a party speedily develops, even amid the wildest storm
of revolution. The Reform Act of 1832 had made room for a
Conservative party suited to the age. The Tories had been weak
because their strength was confined to the landed interest.
Possessed by a panic-dread of change, bred by the events of the
French Revolution, they had refused to admit any new interests to
a share of power. In their despite the Reform Act had transferred
the control of politics from the aristocracy to the middle class.
But the English middle class was naturally Conservative. It was
orderly, it was rich, it was sensitive to social influence, it
was devout and serious in a stiff, unbending way. Some reforms
certainly it required; an effective administration for the great
towns where it lived and traded; the amendment of a poor law
which shocked all its economic maxims; the abolition of negro
slavery which revolted its religion; the abolition of laws which,
pressing hardly upon non-conformists, revolted its sense of
justice. It had not yet declared for free trade, although it
might be expected to do so. The ameliorations which the middle
class at this time desired, Peel was ready to approve, and these
ameliorations once granted, the middle class would tend to be
Conservative. But theirs would not be the conservatism of squires
and rectors. They would incline to a conservatism of their own,
and they would want a leader of their own to formulate it and to
organize them. They would want a statesman who was bone of their
bone, and flesh of their flesh; a good man of business, cautious,
but open to practical suggestions, one who would satisfy their
ideal of industry and economy; one who would always be grave and
decorous, never puzzle them with epigrams or alarm them with
rhetoric; in short, such a great man as they could conceive. Such
Sir Robert Peel was. There never breathed a politician more truly
congenial to them. He represented their virtues and their
failings; he shared their talents and their prejudices; he was
always growing in their confidence; and when he died lamented by
all his fellow-citizens, he was most deeply lamented by them."
With such tact and such mastery of the political situation did
Peel conduct himself in the years of opposition--now mildly
criticising the government's policy, now joining forces with it,
and now tearing its policies to pieces--that he constantly grew
in the national esteem, and began to be looked upon as the
inevitable successor of the Whigs. His turn came sooner than any
one expected, in December, 1834. It was too soon, in fact, for
the first Peel ministry could maintain itself but a few months,
failing to secure a majority of Parliament. Yet in this brief
lease of power Peel gave evidence of his fitness to govern. He
undertook the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, gratified the
Dissenters by proposing to remove the regulations which required
all marriages to be celebrated according to the rites of the
Established Church. He even addressed himself to the delicate
question of settling the temporalities of the Established Church
in Ireland, where the collection of church tithes was accompanied
with much disorder and distress, arising from the fact that the
vast majority of the tithe-payers were hostile to the Protestant
bishops and clergy whom they were taxed to support. The
opposition, led by John Russell, took advantage of the prejudices
surrounding this subject and forced a succession of adverse
votes, in consequence of which the Peel ministry abandoned office
in April, 1835, after one hundred days of power--a period
sometimes considered the most brilliant in Peel's whole career.
For six years Sir Robert Peel remained in opposition, conducting
himself so sagaciously as to gather about him all disaffected
elements of the disintegrating majority. Peel saw to it that
whatever popular measures of reform were carried by the Melbourne
ministry should be credited largely to Conservative support.
Wellington still survived as a great national figure, but his
political influence was gone, and there was no one in the Whig or
Liberal camp who could dispute Peel's position as the leading
public man of England. Of his course at this time he said himself
(1838): "My object is that by steadily attending to our duty, by
censuring the government on all occasions when they deserve it,
enforcing our principles by aiding them to carry those measures
which we think right, even though by so doing we may be rescuing
the government, we may establish new claims upon the approbation
of the country."
The majority of the House of Commons was made up of incongruous
elements, whose interests were at variance on many questions.
Peel actually came to the rescue of the ministers not once, but
so many times as to give bitterness to the taunt hurled at them
by a Radical orator: "Why! the right honorable member for
Tamworth (Peel) governs England. The honorable and learned member
for Dublin (O'Connell) governs England. The Whigs govern nothing
but Downing Street. The right honorable member for Tamworth is
contented with power without place or patronage, and the Whigs
are contented with place and patronage without power!"
Hard times came on and the nation faced an annual deficit.
Distress was widespread among the people, nourishing the Chartist
agitation on the one hand, and giving point to the arguments of
the Anti-Corn Law orators on the other. There was pressing need
for a wise and energetic Prime Minister, and hope of such
qualities in Lord Melbourne had long since failed. The general
elections of 1841 showed a clear majority for the Conservatives,
and in August Sir Robert Peel came back to power, backed by a
consolidated party and trusted by the nation.
The most pressing problems were financial. Peel proposed a
modification of the Corn Law duties, at the same time defending
the system of protection, not in the interests of the
agriculturist class, but to make England independent of foreign
countries for its food supplies. His proposals were enacted into
law. His first budget attempted to turn the customary deficit
into a surplus by means of an income tax of seven pence in the
pound on incomes of one hundred and fifty pounds and upward. His
revision of the tariff on imports introduced important changes
looking toward increased freedom of trade, especially in the raw
materials of manufacture. The times improved; revenue exceeded
expenditure; consols were quoted at only a fraction below par,
and two hundred and fifty million pounds of the national debt was
converted from three and one-half per cent into a loan paying
three and one-fourth per cent for ten years and three per cent
thereafter. By another far-reaching measure--the Bank Charter
Act--Peel placed salutary restrictions upon the issue of paper
money, and increased his reputation as a master of financial
legislation.
From year to year, as the surplus revenue increased, the
government employed it to cut down the duties upon imports. From
wool, cotton, and glass, and many minor items they were entirely
removed, and there were reductions throughout the schedules. The
grants in aid of education were trebled in the face of bitter
protest from his own party. Education in Ireland was aided by
grants to the Catholic College at Maynooth and by the
establishment of other "Queen's colleges" in affiliation with the
university at Dublin.
In one way and another Ireland played a great part in the history
of this administration. In 1843 the agitation of O'Connell, for
the repeal of the union of Ireland with England, culminated in
immense and angry meetings which threatened the public peace. The
government then took the matter in hand, "proclaimed" the
gatherings and arrested O'Connell. It was the failure of the
potato crop of 1845, and the consequent Irish famine which forced
Peel to abandon the last stronghold of protection and recommend
the total and absolute repeal forever of all duties on all
articles of subsistence. The history of the repeal of the Corn
Laws, in 1846, has already been given. On the day on which the
bill passed to its third reading in the House of Lords, all the
enemies of the government, led by Tory protectionists who
considered themselves betrayed by their own Prime Minister
combined to overthrow him. On a bill for the protection of life
in Ireland Peel was defeated by seventy-three votes. Four days
later, on relinquishing his place at the head of the government
he pronounced his memorable valedictory. He should leave a name,
he said, severely censured by many who deeply regretted the
severance of party ties, censured also by all sincere
protectionists. "I shall leave a name execrated by every
monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamors for
protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit. But
it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with
expressions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot it is
to labor and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their
brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with
abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer
leavened by a sense of injustice."
Peel never returned to office. His conversion to free trade had
split his party, and the Whigs, under John Russell, succeeded to
the direction of affairs. He remained in the House of Commons,
and with such personal following as yet remained to him,
supported the administration. The protectionists were rallied and
led by George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, whose star waxed as
Peel's began to wane. Death put a sudden end to his activity. He
was thrown from his horse while riding up Constitution Hill in
London, and died on the second of July, 1850. In accordance with
his expressed wish, his family declined the honors of a public
funeral, and he was buried without ostentation in the family tomb
at Drayton Bassett. His statue, voted by the House of Commons,
was placed in Westminster Abbey.
The Duke of Wellington, in his simple way, said of his late
associate: "I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had a
more lively confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire
to promote the public service. In the whole course of my
communication with him I never knew an instance in which he did
not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw in
the whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting
that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to be the
fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a great politician.
From Disraeli, who would perhaps be less drawn to this
qualification of a statesman, comes this word of praise, with
many of detraction: "Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many
admirable parts. In him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was
united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He
was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and
with great powers of application, which were sustained by a
prodigious memory, while he could communicate his acquisitions
with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man under any
circumstances and in any sphere of life would probably have
become remarkable. Ordained from his youth to be busied with the
affairs of a great empire, such a man, after long years of
observation, practice, and perpetual discipline, would have
become what Sir Robert Peel was in the latter portion of his
life--a transcendent administrator of public business and a
matchless master of debate in a popular assembly."
The masterly debater never rose to heights of eloquence. His
thorough and practical mind enabled him to study, sift, and give
form and substance to the broad political and economic
conceptions of more idealistic men. Inheriting the narrow
political creed of his father, he can scarcely be blamed if his
mind came slowly to advanced positions. Rather shall he not be
commended who, with such prepossessions and prejudices, and with
such party co-workers, keeps his mind open to conviction? "The
resumption of cash payments, the amendment of the criminal law,
the institution of the Irish constabulary and the London police,
Catholic emancipation and the emancipation of trade, and a host
of reforms only less beneficial than these make up a record of
useful labor which has seldom been surpassed."