Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

His father, also Sir Robert Peel (1750-1830) was the 1st baronet and the Tory M.P. for Tamworth. He is noted for promoting the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (1802), the first Factory Act. However, as there was no factory inspectorate, it was not enforced effectively.

Answer: Textiles

In the mid 1790s the textiles firm Haworth, Peel and Yates - in which Peel was the senior partner - had about 15,000 employees, making it one of the largest employers in the country. It invested heavily and very successfully in vertical integration. In the 1780s and 1790s many of the leading new industrialists supported the Tories.

Answer: A Double First

He obtained First Class Honours in both Classics and Mathematics in the Michaelmas (=Autumn) Term, 1808 - a remarkable achievement. He is generally reckoned to have been one of the few intellectuals to have been Prime Minister.

Answer: Cashel

Cashel in County Tipperary, Ireland, was a rotten borough. Once an important city which had housed the court of the Kings of Munster, it had only 24 electors in 1809, who were bribed. To put it bluntly, Robert Peel (Senior) bought the seat for his son.

In 1812 he switched to the Chippenham constituency in Wiltshire, was MP for Oxford Universtity from 1817-1830, when he was defeated because of his support for Roman Catholic emancipation. On the death of his father shortly afterwards in 1830 he inherited the latter's baronetcy and in effect also his father's consituency of Tamworth, Staffordshire.

Answer: Foreign Secretary

He held the following offices: Under-Secretary for War and the Colonies, 1810-12; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1812-18, Home Secretary, 1822-27 and again in 1828-30; Prime Minister, 1834-35 and 1841-46.

Answer: Opposition to Roman Catholic Emancipation

He had taken a hard line against emancipation, and this made his change of mind in 1828 all the more embarrassing - and all the more courageous. The election of David O'Connell (a Roman Catholic) as M.P. for County Clare in 1828 precipitated a crisis. Peel's 'U-turn' on the issue was partly motivated by fear that failure to concede emancipation would cause such bitterness in Ireland that the union of Great Britain and Ireland would be endangered. Along with others, he feared civil war.

Answer: Abolishing judicial floggings and the treadmill

In the early 1820s English criminal law was so harsh that in many cases juries simply refused to convict, and judges were making increasing use of their power to recommend that death sentences be commuted. Peel was keen to increase the certainty of penalties, increase the likelihood of detection while reducing the number of crimes carrying the death penalty.

At the same time he persuaded Parliament to repeal irrelevant laws apt to bring the legal sytem into disrepute, such the death penalty for attempting to commit suicide, for impersonating a Chelsea (or Greenwich) pensioner and for damaging Westminster Bridge. By 1830 over 75% of crimes were covered by legislation introduced by Robert Peel. Nevertheless, even at the end of Peel's Home Secretaryship some penalties were still very degrading, such as the treadmill.

There were further reforms in the 1830s, and from 1840 onwards it was very rare indeed for the death penalty to be used for crimes other than murder.

Answer: That the police force would threaten individual liberty

The main fear in the early 1820s was that an efficient police force would be a political police, on the French or Central European model. Objections to the new police force were so strong in the historic City of London that the 'square mile' was specifically exempted from the Metropolitan Police District. An efficient, paid, full time police force, at least for London, was an important element of Peel's reform of criminal justice.

It also greatly reduced the need to use military force to suppress public disorder and rioting.

In the early years it was primarily a street crime and public order police, and co-existed with the Bow Street runners, who were still largely responsible for more complex detective work.

Answer: The repeal of the Corn Laws

Peel ended what later came to be known as the 'First Afghan War' of 1838-42. It had resulted in the loss of nearly 20,000 men on the British side. The 1842 budget reduced import duties on a wide range of goods and raw materials and reintroduced personal income tax (at about 3%).

There were further tariff reductions in 1845. Despite these significant moves towards free trade, the Conservatives were *the* political party that represented the land-owning classes, and in 1841 Peel was keen to keep the restrictions and tariffs on the import of grain.

However, with the outbreak of the potato blight in Ireland in the late summer of 1845, he decided it was absolutely imperative to repeal these laws. Most members of his own party saw this at best as another U-turn, and even as a betrayal, and he had to rely on the opposition to get the Corn Laws repealed.

Afterwards, he and some of his colleagues left the Conservative Party and formed a small but influential 'Peelite party'. Most of this group, which included Gladstone, later joined the Whigs to form the Liberal Party.

Answer: True

On 30 June 1850 Peel had a very serious riding accident in London. He suffered multiple injuries and died two days later. During those two days there was a stream of enquiries about his health, and following his death printed sheets appeared all over Britain - including some of the very poorest areas.

They extolling the man who, it was said, had 'given the poor cheap bread'. Historians on the whole agree that he played a key role in helping to pilot the country through a particularly difficult time ...

There was an enormous demand for ceramic and other souvenirs commemorating his life, and subscriptions to erect monuments to him attracted large sums. Obviously, it is important not to underestimate the role of other politicians of the period in guiding Britain through the social unrest and disorder of the period. Since c. 1970 historians have tended to stress the conservative aspects of his policies and his thinking. For a good biography, see T. A. Jenkins, "Sir Robert Peel", Macmillan Press, Ltd., London and St. Martin's Press, Inc., New York 1999.

There is also a very readable, shorter biography by G. Kitson Clark, "Peel", Duckworth, London 1936.