PEEL, Sir Robert, 3rd bt. (1822-1895), of Drayton Manor, near Tamworth, Staffordshire

‘One of the most striking, and in some respects, erratic characters in recent political history’, Peel was the son, heir and namesake of the Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel, 2nd baronet (1788-1850).1Morning Post, 10 May 1895. His wayward political career ‘disappointed early expectations’ and was often blamed on his maverick personality and ‘devil-may-care’ attitude.2Pall Mall Gazette, 9 May 1895; Freeman’s Journal, 10 May 1895. The election agent Joseph Parkes thought him ‘a strange compound of sanity & insanity’, while Lord Stanley, son of the Conservative leader Lord Derby, commented that the baronet was:

Half-insane, wholly inconsistent, insomuch that no set of men can at any time wholly count on his vote, he yet commends some respect for talent and independence of character.3Joseph Parkes to Lord Hatherton, 28 Oct. 1853, Staffordshire Record Office, D260/M/F/5/27/26; Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party: the political journals of Lord Stanley, 1849-69, ed. J. Vincent (1978), 55 (14 Mar. 1851).

At the start of his career, Peel’s ‘fine rhetorical powers, his dramatic instinct, and his sense of humour won him high repute in the House of Commons’.4The Times, 10 May 1895. He possessed ‘one of the finest voices that could possibly be heard’, and although he lacked gravitas, few parliamentary speakers could use sarcasm and wit to such devastating effect.5Daily News, 10 May 1895. Sir John Trelawny, Liberal MP for Tavistock, who thought Peel a ‘sort of enfant terrible’, recorded that he had a ‘good voice, excellent manner of delivery, & speaks good terse English’, as well as being a ‘fine looking fellow – full of nervous energy & courage’.6The parliamentary diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865, ed. T. Jenkins, Camden series, 4th series, XL (1990), 173 (27 May 1861). Apart from when he was in government, Peel was an infrequent speaker who reserved his major orations for important set piece debates.7G. Fletcher, Parliamentary portraits (1862), 281. He also had ‘few equals’ as a platform speaker.8Tamworth Herald, 11 May 1895. When addressing the House, Peel stood ‘with one hand in his pocket, and he twirls a cane in the other – sometimes varying the gesture by twirling his moustache’.9E.M. Whitty, The Derbyites and the coalition (1854), 174. There was a ‘pleasing completeness about his personal appearance’ and ‘he wore his hat at an angle of which he alone possessed the secret’.10Pall Mall Gazette, 9 May 1895 (4th edn.).

Nominally a Peelite when first elected in place of his dead father in 1850, Peel initially flirted with the Derbyites, before becoming a staunch Palmerstonian. His oratorical firepower, his name and his possession of a safe seat were all in his favour as a rising politician. In 1855 he was made a lord of the admiralty by Palmerston and, less happily, served as Irish chief secretary, 1861-5. His stormy spell in the latter post found him at odds with successive lord lieutenants, while his forthright public speeches angered Catholic opinion, and his tactlessness meant that he failed to conciliate Irish MPs. His personal conduct also made him a liability. On a number of occasions he got into well-publicised brawls, and he also owned and raced horses, by which he was a ‘heavy loser’.11Parkes to Hatherton, 28 Oct. 1853, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/27/26. On his horse-racing see also Pall Mall Gazette, 9 May 1895 (4th edn.). After Palmerston’s death, Peel resigned from Russell’s successor government in November 1865, prompting the lord lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Kimberley, to write:

I have managed to get on with him without quarrelling for a year, but his departure is a great relief to me. His utter want of judgment, & above all his ‘inconséquences’ makes him a very undesirable colleague. He is quick-witted, clever, & vigorous but will always be a source of weakness rather than strength to any Govt. with which he allies himself.12The journal of John Wodehouse, first earl of Kimberley, 1862-1902, ed. A. Hawkins and J. Powell eds., Camden, 5th series, IX, (1997), 180 (8 Dec. 1865).

His father’s biographer Norman Gash has written that Peel took his ‘temperament and physical characteristics ... entirely from his mother’s Anglo-Indian family’, and possessed ‘none of the traditional Peel qualities of soberness, integrity, and purpose’.13N. Gash, Sir Robert Peel (1972), 176. Like his father, Peel was educated at Harrow and Christ Church college, Oxford, but his performance did not match his father’s glittering academic career.14G.C. Boase, rev. H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Peel, Sir Robert, 2nd baronet (1822-95)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Peel held a number of diplomatic appointments, serving as secretary to the British legation in Madrid from 1844, until transferring to Switzerland in 1846, where he was later promoted to chargé d’affaires.15F. Boase, Modern English biography (1897), ii. 1434-5; Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 1562-3. After assuming the family’s baronetcy and Staffordshire estates in July 1850 after his father’s premature death, he sat for the family pocket borough of Tamworth. Although he faced token opposition at the 1859 and 1865 general elections, on both occasions topping the poll, he was otherwise unchallenged in this period.

Peel had avowed the principles of his late father on his election, but his party allegiance was unclear in the 1851 session.16Freeman’s Journal, 17 July 1850. In his maiden speech, 14 Mar. 1851, Peel declared that the establishment of a Roman Catholic hierarchy in England was the ‘first step of a premeditated and organised system of attack’ on English liberties by the Papacy.17Hansard, 14 Mar. 1851, vol. 114, cc. 1376-84 (at 1384). Accordingly, despite his professed general support for religious liberty, he supported Russell’s ecclesiastical titles bill, parting company with the leading Peelites. The speech was later described as ‘astounding’ and ‘a masterpiece’, but Lord Stanley wrote perceptively:

The speech left behind an impression of considerable cleverness, with a plentiful lack of judgment. It is impossible to conceive a contrast more marked than that between the late and present Sir R. Peel.18Fletcher, Parliamentary portraits, 280-1; Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 55 (14 Mar. 1851).

Peel’s second speech, 11 Apr. 1851, on agricultural distress was a ‘painful failure’ as he was unprepared and ‘broke down utterly’.19Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 61 (11 Apr. 1851); Hansard, 11 Apr. 1851, vol. 116, cc. 106-7. He opposed the Derby government’s militia bill, 23 Apr. 1852, but lavishly praised the prime minister and expressed a willingness to support the government if it abandoned agricultural protection. He declared himself a ‘Liberal Conservative free trader’, but had ‘great political sympathy’ with Lord Palmerston.20He was nonetheless critical of Palmerston over the militia issue: Hansard, 23 Apr. 1852, vol. 120, cc. 1072-81 (at 1074, 1077). Peel made a ‘clever but eccentric’ speech against Jewish relief, 24 Feb. 1853, spoke in favour of the ballot, 14 June 1853, and backed Gladstone’s budget, 2 May 1853.21Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 100 (24 Feb. 1853); Hansard, 24 Feb. 1853, vol. 124, cc. 606-12; 14 June 1853, vol. 128, cc. 204-12. His unpredictable opinions led one journalist to sarcastically describe him as ‘ “an independent member”; that is no one knows how he’ll vote until they see him in the lobby’. Indeed, the only pattern to his votes was that he invariably seemed to be in the opposite division lobby to his brother Frederick Peel, MP for Leominster, 1849-52, Bury 1852-7, 1859-65, and a junior minister in the Aberdeen coalition.22Whitty, The Derbyites, 173. Privately Peel was ambivalent about the Aberdeen coalition and the opposition.23‘The H. of C. never seemed more apathetic … As to the opposition its lameness is quite disheartening, for with most capital opportunities for attacking the Govt., right or wrong, we have nothing but Disraeli Disraeli Disraeli.’: Sir Robert Peel to Lord Hatherton, 13 Dec. 1853, Staffs. RO, D260/M/F/5/27/27. In a series of speeches in 1854 before and after the outbreak of the Crimean War, Peel urged a strong policy to block Russian expansionism in the Near East.24Hansard, 31 Jan. 1854, vol. 130, cc. 135-44; 13 Mar. 1854, vol. 131, cc. 746-50; 12 Dec. 1854, vol. 136, cc. 123-9. He opposed Roebuck’s motion that brought down Aberdeen’s government, 29 Jan. 1855, but the following day wrote a letter to his constituents condemning ministers for presiding over a ‘defective and decrepit system of military administration’.25Morning Post, 6 Feb. 1855.

After his appointment as a lord of the admiralty by the new premier Lord Palmerston, Mar. 1855, Peel called at the ensuing ministerial by-election for the navy to blockade ‘every Russian port’.26Daily News, 15 Mar. 1855. A public lecture in Warwickshire, 7 Jan. 1857, included colourful descriptions of a Russian grand duke and the French emperor’s half-brother and almost sparked a diplomatic incident. Palmerston was ‘really deeply grieved’ at the ‘repeated follies’ of his protégé, and lamented that ‘there is a want of ballast which will ever prevent him from sailing well’.27Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon, 16 Jan. 1857, qu. in H.E. Maxwell, The life and letters of George William Frederick, fourth earl of Clarendon, 2 vols. (1913), ii. 137-8. Accordingly, although Peel was considered for the positions of Irish chief secretary and colonial under-secretary he was dropped in the government reshuffle in May 1857.28Lord Granville to Lord Clarendon, n.d. [1857], qu. in Maxwell, Life of Clarendon, ii. 134; ‘…and Mr. Fortescue’: a selection from the diaries from 1851 to 1862 of Chichester Fortescue, Lord Carlingford, ed. O. Hewett (1958), 105-6, 184 (6 May 1857, 22 July 1857). Peel had his revenge with his ‘slashing English speech’ against the government’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858, which had the ‘House in roars of laughter at his jokes & sarcasms’.29Trelawny diaries, 26 (19 Feb. 1858); Hansard, 19 Feb. 1858, vol. 148, cc. 1789-1800; A. Hawkins, Parliament, party and the art of politics in Britain, 1855-59 (1987), 101. His speech on India was ‘energetic & amusing’, although Trelawny thought that ‘jesting & personality are out of place in an argument on a question of immense imperial import’, 17 May 1858.30Trelawny diaries, 42 (17 May 1858); Hansard, 17 May 1858, vol. 150, cc. 823-31.

Although he was sympathetic towards the Conservative government, Peel voted for Russell’s critical motion against Derby’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859, and hailed the uniting of the Liberal party.31Hansard, 31 Mar. 1859, vol. 153, cc. 1170-81. A strong supporter of Italian unity, in 1860 Peel repeatedly raised the French annexation of Savoy, which he argued threatened Swiss independence and would destabilise Europe.32Savoy had been secretly offered by the Sardinian king (and future king of Italy) to Napoleon III as a quid pro quo for supporting Italian unification, especially against Austria. Peel’s Swiss connections gave him an interest in the issue: Hansard, 28 Feb. 1860, 2 Mar. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 1947-57; 30 Mar. 1860, vol. 157, cc. 1643-8, 1648-60. Peel later expressed concerns about the annexation of Sicily to Piedmont, 12 July 1860.33Hansard, 12 July 1860, vol. 159, cc. 1776-86. However, it remained unclear what policy Peel wanted the British government to take.34As both John Bright and Lord John Russell noted in debate: Hansard, 2 Mar. 1860, vol. 156, cc. 2167-8; 12 July 1860, vol. 159, c. 1787. In 1861 Peel continued to contribute on Italian affairs, reserving special scorn for the temporal power of the papacy which he called ‘an institution of the middle ages’, 7 Mar. 1861.35Hansard, 7 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, c. 1563. He also repeatedly drew attention to the religious persecution of Protestants in Spain.36Hansard, 15 Mar. 1861, vol. 161, cc. 2053-9, 2059-65; 11, 19 Apr. 1861, 17 May 1861, vol. 162 , cc. 416-17, 800-1, 830-2, 2197-2201; 6 June 1861, vol. 164, cc. 676-82.

Peel’s vocal criticism of the papacy was probably one of the reasons why Palmerston appointed him as Irish chief secretary in July 1861. Irritated by the hostility of Irish Roman Catholics towards the government’s Italian policy, Palmerston used the appointment to signal a shift in approach. Instead of giving further concessions to ungrateful Irish Catholics, Palmerston thought it ‘politic to draw a little closer to the Liberal Protestant gentry of Ireland, upon whom alone we really can depend’.37Lord Palmerston to Lord Carlisle, 28 July 1861, Castle Howard, J19/1/94/49, qu. in A. Warren, ‘Palmerston, the Whigs and the government of Ireland, 1855-1866’, in D. Brown and M. Taylor (eds.), Palmerston studies (2 vols. 2007), i. 95-126 (at 110). See also E.D. Steele, Palmerston and liberalism, 1855-65 (1991), 324-5. The government was also hoping to secure some support from Irish Conservative MPs.38A ‘vain idea’ thought Peel’s successor Chichester Fortescue, Whig MP for Co. Louth: Hewett, ‘…and Mr. Fortescue’, 194 (7 Apr. 1862).

Peel’s period in office was severely criticised by contemporaries and historians have been equally damning.39K.T. Hoppen, Elections, politics and society in Ireland, 1832-1885 (1984), 261. During his brief tour of Ireland in autumn 1861, Peel traded insults with the Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Cullen, and his attempts to court popularity with Protestants in Ulster were poorly received elsewhere.40Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 117-18 (17 Nov. 1861); Freeman’s Journal, 14, 15, 18, 21 Nov. 1861. When Peel sought to drum up subscriptions for the non-denominational Queen’s colleges, many Catholics refused to donate and called for the government to confer a charter and degree-awarding powers on their private Catholic university (established in 1854) instead.41Freeman’s Journal, 23 Nov. 1861, 31 Dec. 1861, 4, 8, 14, 25 Jan. 1862. Peel was also soon at odds with the more conciliatory lord lieutenant Lord Carlisle over the distribution of patronage between Catholics and Protestants.42Warren, ‘Palmerston and Ireland’, 111-12.

On his appointment the Freeman’s Journal had protested that Peel was ill-suited for the role as he was ‘quick and flippant in debate – often terse, argumentative and trenchant’.43Freeman’s Journal, 27 July 1861. Early in the 1862 session Peel denied that there was widespread distress in Ireland and had a ‘passage of arms’ with John Maguire, MP for Dungarvan, after a debate on the issue, 14 Feb. 1862.44Hansard, 6, 14 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 80-6, 267-70; Trelawny diaries, 191 (14 Feb. 1862). During another debate on distress, 21 Feb. 1862, he described attendees of a public meeting as ‘mannikin traitors’.45Hansard, 21 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 566-75 (at 575). This language so incensed the chairman of the meeting, The O’Donoghue, MP for Tipperary, that he challenged Peel to a duel. Palmerston defused the row with a lecture on the breach of parliamentary privilege, but Peel refused to retract the offending comments.46Hansard, 24 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 617-26; Trelawny diaries, 192 (24 Feb. 1862). Peel’s tactlessness, temper and tone antagonised Irish Catholic MPs, when it was the job of the chief secretary to conciliate them.47Trelawny diaries, 193-4 (7 Mar. 1862). For criticism from Irish MPs see Hansard, 21 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, c. 579 (Vincent Scully), 586-9 (The O’Conor Don); 16 May 1862, vol. 166, c. 1835 (More O’Ferrall). He later remarked of Catholicism that ‘its aim as a political system is to interfere with free institutions’, 22 May 1862.48Hansard, 22 May 1862, vol. 166, c. 2047. Although Peel modified his tone during the session, he still had difficulty securing the passage of the government’s Irish legislation. Six of the ten bills he introduced were passed, including two bills that renewed coercive legislation.49The successful bills were: Poor Relief (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 83); County Surveyors (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 106); College of Physicians (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 15); Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 24); Unlawful Oaths (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 32); Weights and Measures Amendment (Ireland) Act (25 & 26 Vict., c. 76). The most important measure was the Weights and Measures Amendment Act that standardised weights and measures. The four withdrawn bills included a measure to belatedly provide for the registration of births and deaths in Ireland, which encountered overwhelming opposition due to its proposal to make the Irish constabulary registrars.50Hansard, 20 Feb. 1862, vol. 165, cc. 514-20; 2 July 1862, vol. 167, cc. 1321-2. A revised registration bill that made poor law medical officers registrars was passed in 1863.5126 & 27 Vict., c. 11. In 1864 seven out of twelve government bills passed, and in 1865 six out of eight. However, most of these Acts were minor measures, often amendments to existing legislation. Peel repeatedly stated that the government had no intention to legislate any further regarding the land question.52Hansard, 13 Feb. 1863, vol. 169, c. 308. Both this and his optimism regarding Irish progress echoed Palmerston’s long held belief that economic and social improvements could only come from landlords rather than state intervention.53Warren, ‘Palmerston and Ireland’, 96, 112; Hansard, 20 Feb. 1863, vol. 169, cc. 604-5; 7 Feb. 1865, vol. 177, c. 73.

In 1864 the government’s policy became increasingly incoherent as Peel continued the Palmerstonian line, while the new lord lieutenant Lord Kimberley proposed public works and railways to promote economic development and Gladstone began to shift to a more conciliatory position.54Warren, ‘Palmerston and Ireland’, 113-15. Although Peel was diligent and punctual with his official correspondence he was ‘too flighty and incoherent for administrative usefulness’.55Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 185 (30 Apr. 1862); ‘A Conservative’, letter to Freeman’s Journal, 23 Nov. 1865. Privately the Whig cabinet minister Lord Clarendon regarded his abilities ‘with utter contempt’.56Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative party, 201 (28 July 1863). Peel’s public conduct in other areas was also an issue. His energetic but ill-judged campaign on behalf of Palmerston’s stepson at the Tamworth by-election in October 1863, was ‘a source of entertainment to the whole country’.57The Times, 15 Oct. 1863. Peel made vituperative attacks on the other candidate (a member of the Peel family), was booed and hissed by the crowd, punched an elector in a scuffle during the polling, and saw his candidate beaten in the family’s borough.58The Times, 13 Oct. 1863. In September 1865 Peel was involved in a ‘foolish fracas’ on a train, which Kimberley thought brought ‘discredit to the government’.59Kimberley journal, 175 (30 Sept. 1865).

Palmerston’s death in October 1865 and his replacement by Russell signalled a more progressive Irish policy, and Kimberley cynically noted that Peel ‘has suddenly become quite Liberal! - is all in favour of the Univ. scheme, for appointing Catholics, putting down Orangemen &c &c !!!’.60Kimberley journal, 177 (3 Nov. 1865). After declining a peerage, Peel resigned from the government in November 1865 after Russell called his bluff by offering him the chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, which Peel refused unless it came with a cabinet seat.61Kimberley journal, 177-8 (3, 18 Nov. 1865); Warren, ‘Palmerston and Ireland’, 116; Freeman’s Journal, 23, 24 Nov. 1865. He never held office again, and quickly became a critic of the Liberal government’s 1866 reform bill, supporting the Adullamite amendments of Earl Grosvenor and Lord Dunkellin, 27 Apr. 1866, 18 June 1866, and also reversing his earlier support for the ballot. He supported Gladstone’s church rates abolition bill, but criticised the government’s Irish university scheme.62Hansard, 8 May 1866, vol. 183, cc. 631-3; 16 July 1866, vol. 184, cc. 842-54. Peel defended the right of Tamworth to return two MPs in 1867, but otherwise took little part in the debates on the representation of the people bill.63Hansard, 8 July 1867, vol. 188, cc. 1238-40. He surprised expectations by voting for Gladstone’s Irish church resolutions, 3 Apr. 1868, having been considered ‘certain’ to support Disraeli’s government.64J.E. Denison, visct. Ossington, Notes from my journal when speaker of the House of Commons (1900), 223, 225.

Peel topped the poll as a Liberal at the 1868 general election, but became a ‘severe critic’ of Gladstone’s Liberal government.65The Times, 10 May 1895. In 1874 he described himself as a Liberal Conservative and was returned with a Conservative at the general election, defeating two Liberals.66McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, ed. J. Vincent and M. Stenton (8th edn., 1972), 288-9 ; Boase, ‘Peel’. Financial difficulties prompted him to sell off much of his father’s art collection to the National Gallery in 1871 for £75,000.67F. Boase, Modern English biography, iii. 1434-5. In 1880 Peel ended his family’s connection with the parliamentary representation of Tamworth and unsuccessfully contested Gravesend as a Conservative at the general election.68McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 124. He was returned as a ‘very independent Conservative’ for Huntingdon in 1884, and at the general election the following year was elected for Blackburn.69Pall Mall Gazette, 9 May 1895 (4th edn.); McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, 144; ibid., pt. II, p. 20. However, he did not oppose Gladstone’s 1886 home rule bill, but abstained.70Matthew, ‘Peel’. ‘With characteristic impetuosity’, Peel then became an ardent home ruler and at the ensuing general election he stood as a Gladstonian Liberal at Inverness burghs, but was defeated by a Liberal Unionist.71The Times, 10 May 1895; McCalmont’s parliamentary poll book, pt. II, p. 119. After unsuccessfully contesting the 1889 Brighton by-election, he made no further attempts to return to the House.72Ibid., pt. II, p. 24.

In his last years, Peel, who was afflicted by gout, spent most of his time at St. James’s Club in Piccadilly, reading novels, horse racing news and his father’s Hansard speeches. Having sold off much of the family estates in 1884, Peel rarely visited Drayton Manor, and he was separated from his wife Emily, the daughter of 8th marquess of Tweedale, who he had married in 1856.73Tamworth Herald, 11 May 1895. On his death from a brain haemorrhage in 1895, the title, Drayton and a personal estate of £9,568 passed to his only son Sir Robert Peel, 4th baronet (1867-1925).74Boase, ‘Peel’.