The Right Honourable
The Viscount Peel
PC
Peel, c. 1890s
Speaker of the House of Commons
of the United Kingdom
In office
26 February 1884 – 8 April 1895
MonarchVictoria
Preceded bySir Henry Brand
Succeeded bySir William Gully
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs
In office
28 April 1880 – 1 January 1881
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byMatthew White Ridley
Succeeded byLeonard Courtney
Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury
In office
1 August 1873 – 17 February 1874
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byGeorge Glyn
Succeeded byWilliam Hart Dyke
Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade
In office
14 January 1871 – 1 August 1873
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byGeorge Shaw-Lefevre
Succeeded byGeorge Cavendish-Bentinck
Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board
In office
10 December 1868 – 14 January 1871
Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone
Preceded byMichael Hicks Beach
Succeeded byOffice abolished
Member of the House of Lords
Hereditary peerage
9 May 1895 – 24 October 1912
Succeeded byThe 2nd Viscount Peel
Member of Parliament
for Warwick and Leamington
In office
18 December 1885 – 7 August 1895
Preceded byConstituency established
Succeeded byAlfred Lyttelton
Member of Parliament
for Warwick
In office
24 July 1865 – 18 December 1885
Preceded byEdward Greaves
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born3 August 1829 (1829-08-03)
Died24 October 1912(1912-10-24) (aged 83)
NationalityBritish
Political partyLiberal
Liberal Unionist
SpouseAdelaide Dugdale (d. 1890)
Children7, including William, George, and Sidney
Parents
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Signature

Arthur Wellesley Peel, 1st Viscount Peel, PC (3 August 1829 – 24 October 1912), was a British Liberal politician, who sat in the House of Commons from 1865 to 1895. He was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1884 until 1895, when he was raised to the peerage.

Early life

Peel was the fifth and youngest son of the Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel by his wife, Julia, the daughter of General Sir John Floyd, 1st Baronet. Peel was named after Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford.[1]

Political career

Peel was elected Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Warwick in the 1865 general election and held the seat until 1885, when it was replaced under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.[2] From 1868 to 1871, he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board and then became Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. In 1873 to 1874, he was patronage secretary to the Treasury, and in 1880, he became Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs in William Ewart Gladstone's second government.[3] On the retirement of Sir Henry Brand, Peel was elected Speaker of the House of Commons on 26 February 1884.[4]

In the 1885 general election, Peel was elected for Warwick and Leamington. Throughout his career as Speaker, as the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition noted, "he exhibited conspicuous impartiality, combined with a perfect knowledge of the traditions, usages and forms of the House, soundness of judgment, and readiness of decision upon all occasions".[5] Though officially impartial, Peel left the Liberal Party over the issue of Home Rule and became a Liberal Unionist. Peel was also an important ally of Charles Bradlaugh, whose campaigns to have the oath of allegiance changed eventally permitted non-Christians, such as agnostics and atheists, to serve in the House of Commons.

Speaker Peel, c. 1888

Mr. Speaker's Retirement Act 1895
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long titleAn Act for settling and securing an Annuity upon the Right Honourable Arthur Wellesley Pool in consideration of his eminent Services.
Citation58 & 59 Vict. c. 10
Dates
Royal assent14 May 1895

Peel retired for health reasons[3] prior to the 1895 general election and was created Viscount Peel, of Sandy in the County of Bedford, with a pension of £4,000 for life.[3] He was presented with the Freedom of the City of London in July of that year.[5] In 1896, he was chairman of a royal commission into the licensing laws. Other members of the commission disagreed with part of his report, and he resigned the chair, which left Sir Algernon West to complete a majority report. However, the report was published in Peel's name and recommended that the number of licensed houses should be greatly reduced. The report was a valuable weapon in the hands of reformers.[3]

A street in Warwick, Peel Road, was named in his honour.[6]

Family

Peel married Adelaide Dugdale (14 November 1839 – 5 December 1890[7]), daughter of William Stratford Dugdale, in 1862. She died in December 1890 and Lord Peel remained a widower until his death in October 1912, aged 83. They had seven children:[7]

References

  1. ↑ Debretts Guide to the House of Commons 1886
  2. ↑ Hansard Millbank Systems - Arthur Peel
  3. 1 2 3 4 Chisholm 1911.
  4. ↑ HC Deb 26 February 1884 vol 285 cc17-30
  5. 1 2 One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Peel, Arthur Wellesley Peel, 1st Viscount". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 39–40.
  6. ↑ "Google Maps". www.google.com/maps. Retrieved 27 December 2021.
  7. 1 2 "Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records". www.ancestry.com. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  8. ↑ "Peel, Maurice Berkeley". Winchester College Great War. Winchester College. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
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