Peel, Robert

Peel, Robert (1788–1850), British politician. He spent the first three years of his parliamentary career as MP for the Irish rotten borough of Cashel, transferring to an English constituency when he became chief secretary for Ireland. As chief secretary (1812–18) he initiated the early 19th‐century transformation of law enforcement with the Peace Preservation Force (1814), co‐ordinated relief measures during the harvest failure and typhus epidemic of 1816–17, and emerged as the most formidable parliamentary opponent of Catholic emancipation. A narrowly averted duel with Daniel O'Connell in August 1815 laid the foundations of a lifelong mutual hostility. As home secretary (1822–7, 1828–30) Peel remained closely interested in Irish affairs, although the County Constabulary (see police) created in 1822 was not his work but that of his successor as chief secretary, Henry Goulburn. By 1825 Peel accepted that emancipation could not be postponed indefinitely, and was ready to withdraw from office while it passed. His decision, in January 1829, to remain in government and give the measure his active support was crucial in securing the consent of George IV.

As prime minister (1841–6) Peel combined firm action against the repeal movement with a series of measures (a threefold increase in the Maynooth Grant, the Charitable Bequests Act, and the Queen's Colleges) intended to detach moderate Catholic support from the agitation. His handling of the first year of the Great Famine (1845–6) is often favourably compared to the more doctrinaire approach of his Whig successors, although the crisis Peel had to cope with was significantly less formidable. Hunger in Ireland provided the occasion for Peel to abandon his earlier defence of the corn laws, which protected domestic agriculture against imported grain. Tory resentment at this apostasy, and at the Maynooth Grant, led to the defeat of Peel's government, on an Irish coercion bill, in June 1846.

In British history Peel is seen as the creator of modern conservatism, bringing his party to terms with a changing social and political order. His Irish policies anticipate in some respects the ‘constructive unionism’ of a century later. Yet the balance between principle and pragmatism remains difficult to set. As chief secretary Peel bitterly criticized the venality of Irish parliamentarians and the crass triumphalism of the Protestant party, while remaining an efficient manipulator and, where necessary, defender of the system he affected to despise. In the 1840s his declarations on the necessity of conciliating moderate Catholics alternated with private comments suggesting that he was in practice content to create controversy and division in Catholic ranks.

Bibliography

Kerr, D. A. , Peel, Priests and Politics (1982)