Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/221

 224 (with portrait); Burke's Portrait Gallery, 1833, i. 58 (with portrait of Mrs. Peel).]

PEEL, LAWRENCE (1799–1884), chief justice of Calcutta, third son of Joseph Peel of Bowes Farm, Middlesex, who died in 1821, by Anne, second daughter of Jonathan Haworth of Harcroft, Lancashire, was born on 10 Aug. 1799. His father was younger brother of the first Sir (1750–1830) [q. v.], and he was thus first cousin of the statesman, the second Sir (1788–1850) [q. v.] He was sent to Rugby in 1812, and removing to St. John's College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. 1821 and M.A. 1824. After his call to the bar at the Middle Temple on 7 May 1824 he went the northern circuit, and attended the Lancaster, Preston, and Manchester sessions. He served as advocate-general at Calcutta from 1840 to 1842, and in the latter year, on being promoted to the chief-justiceship of the supreme court at Calcutta, was knighted by patent on 18 May. During 1854 and 1855 he was also vice-president of the legislative council at Calcutta. He gave away in public charity the whole of his official income of 8,000l. a year. He was consequently very popular throughout his career in India; and on his retirement in November 1855 a statue of him was erected in Calcutta.

After his return to England he was sworn of the privy council, and was made a paid member of the judicial committee on 4 April 1856. He was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple on 8 May 1856, and became treasurer of his inn on 3 Dec. 1866. From 1857 he was a director of the East India Company, and in the following year was created a D.C.L. of the university of Oxford. In January 1864 he became president of Guy's Hospital, London. He was for some years a correspondent of the ‘Times’ on legal and general topics. He died, unmarried, at Garden Reach, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, on 22 July 1884.

He wrote ‘Horæ Nauseæ,’ 1841, poems translated and original (the latter are probably juvenile productions) and ‘A Sketch of the Life and Character of Sir R. Peel,’ 1860.



PEEL, PAUL (1861–1892), Canadian painter, was born at London, Ontario, where his father was a marble-cutter. He received his first training at the College of Fine Arts, Pennsylvania, and afterwards studied in Paris under Gérôme. His apprenticeship over, he settled in Paris, making occasional short sojourns in his native country. His art was entirely French in character. He was a successful exhibitor at the salon, gaining the gold medal in 1890 for his picture ‘After the Bath.’ His favourite subjects were taken from the nursery, but during the summer months he used to work en plein air in the northern provinces of France. He was an excellent colourist and a master of delicate effects of light. He died in October 1892, leaving a widow and one son.



PEEL, ROBERT (1750–1830), first baronet, manufacturer and member of parliament, was born at Peelfold, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, on 25 April 1750. His family, which has been obscurely traced to a Danish origin, had emigrated early in the seventeenth century from the district of Craven in Yorkshire to the neighbouring town of Blackburn in Lancashire. His father, Robert Peel, had founded the fortunes of the family in 1764, when, having mortgaged his family estates, he established at Blackburn, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Mr. Haworth, and a neighbour named Yates, a calico-printing firm, which may be considered the parent of that industry in Lancashire. He has been described as ‘a tall, robust, handsome man, of excellent constitution, with a character for uprightness and persevering industry, and possessing a mechanical genius.’ He married, in 1744, Elizabeth Haworth, and by her had seven sons, the third of whom was Robert Peel, first baronet. The boy was educated at Blackburn, and subsequently in London, whence he returned to enter his father's business. At the age of twenty-three he became a partner in the firm of Haworth, Peel, & Yates, calico-printers.

In his business Peel was an originator and reformer. He imported deserted children from the London workhouses, educated them, and enabled them to earn their living. He appreciated and applied the discoveries of Arkwright and Hargreaves. It was probably because he feared that the jealousy of the handloom workers would be provoked by his new machinery that he removed a branch of his cotton business to Tamworth in Staffordshire, where he also bought a large estate and built Drayton Manor.

In 1780 he wrote a pamphlet entitled ‘The National Debt productive of National Prosperity,’ in which he argued that a domestic public debt owed by the community to itself cannot impair the aggregate wealth of the community. In 1790 he entered 