PEEL, Edmund (1791-1850), of Bonehill House, Tamworth, Staffordshire; Hednesford Lodge, Cannock Chase, Staffordshire

During his second brief stint in the Commons, Peel generally sided with the Conservative party led by his older brother Sir Robert Peel, 2nd baronet. However, in some respects his views departed slightly from the Tory politics of his family, which perhaps accounts for his classification as a ‘moderate Reformer’ in contemporary parliamentary guides.1Dod’s parliamentary companion (1835), 152; The assembled Commons (1837), 140. The third son of the immensely wealthy cotton manufacturer Sir Robert Peel (1750-1830), who had represented Tamworth 1790-1820, Edmund was the only one of the six Peel brothers (five of whom became MPs), who displayed ‘any taste for a business career’.2HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 740-4; I.R. Christie, British ‘non-élite’ MPs 1715-1820 (1995), 173; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 667; N. Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel (1961), 63. Although like his brothers, Peel used his inheritance from his father to acquire a landed estate, at Bonehill in Staffordshire, he was also involved in calico printing at Fazeley in the same county and in Lancashire.3Gash, Mr. Secretary Peel, 63.

Uniquely in his family, Peel was a lifelong supporter of Catholic relief, which ultimately precluded his planned candidature for the Tory and Protestant stronghold of Norwich in the 1820s.4Ibid., 404. He was later linked with Leicester, and was defeated at Newcastle-under-Lyme at the 1830 general election, but was finally returned to Parliament for the latter constituency the following year.5Ibid., 404; HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 667-8. He opposed the reform bill until the proposed abolition of the freemen franchise was modified.6HP Commons, 1820-1832, vi. 668. Peel sought re-election as an Independent at the 1832 general election. During the campaign he criticised the corn laws, arguing that the ‘present system has been productive of no benefit’, and favoured a ‘fixed and moderate duty’ on corn instead of the sliding scale.7Staffordshire Advertiser, 29 Sept. 1832. Although Peel was relegated to third place, he only spent £50 on the election, which was perhaps just as well given that he was reported to have expended £9,000 in the two previous contests.8Staffordshire Advertiser, 24 Nov. 1832, 15 Dec. 1832.

Peel was not surprisingly reluctant to offer for Newcastle-under-Lyme again two years later, telling Sir Robert, 29 Dec. 1834, that unless ‘I can be assured that the bribery system is discountenanced by the candidates or by the town I will have no part in the election’.9Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, 29 Dec. 1834, Add. 40408, f. 67. Such assurances must have been forthcoming as Peel stood again at Newcastle-under-Lyme at the 1835 general election. Although he expressed pride in his brother’s recent accession to the premiership, Peel declared that ‘he would never give up his own political sentiments even to support his brother’s administration’. He was elected in second place after advocating the repeal of malt duty to relieve the working class and condemning the new poor law.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Jan. 1835. Peel missed the vote on the speakership, 19 Feb. 1835, but voted in support of his brother on the address, 26 Mar. 1835 and against the reform of the Irish church, 2 Apr. 1835. Despite rumours to the contrary, Peel did not offer at the South Staffordshire by-election in May 1835, however, he gave ‘every assistance’ to the Conservatives and was instrumental in securing the return of their candidate.11Dyott’s diary, ed. R.W. Jeffrey (1907), ii. 199. Surprisingly perhaps, Peel was in the minority which supported the addition of Matthias Attwood, a stout critic of Sir Robert’s views on the currency, to the select committee on agriculture, 8 Feb. 1836. Peel retired at the 1837 general election and did not seek a return to the Commons.

His withdrawal from public politics was partly due to poor health, as the Staffordshire Tory William Dyott commented after visiting Edmund and his brother William Yates Peel:

The two brothers are miserably afflicted with the gout, neither having a sound leg to stand up on. The riches of the family does not exempt some of them from disease and trouble; these two owe their sufferings in some degree to their partaking to excess the luxuries of the table.12Ibid., 229.

In 1839 Dyott noted that unlike William Yates Peel and Sir Robert, Edmund was not ‘friendly’ to the existing corn laws and favoured an alteration.13Ibid., 288, 317-18. Edmund’s son apparently said that ‘“his father argues with an eye to the manufacturing interest”’.14Ibid., 288. That said, Edmund was still a Conservative supporter, and told Sir Robert, 29 May 1839, that he was ‘quite right’ not to have taken office during the ‘bedchamber crisis’, as ‘eventually you will strengthen your party from the line you adopted’.15Edmund Peel to Sir Robert Peel, 29 May 1839, Add. 40427, f. 41. Peel died in 1850, a few months after Sir Robert. His three sons all pursued military careers.16Burke’s peerage and baronetage (1949), 1563.