Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/235

  tain Martin, 1850. Other works on the subject are: The Opinions of Sir R. Peel expressed in Parliament and in Public, by W. T. Haly, 1850; Speeches by Sir Robert Peel during his Administration, 1834–5, also his address to the electors of Tamworth, and speech at the entertainment at Merchant Taylors' Hall, 11 May 1835; Inaugural Address of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, 11 Jan. 1837; The Peel Banquet at Merchant Taylors' Hall, 12 May 1838; Speech of Sir R. Peel at Tamworth, 28 July 1841; Peel and O'Connell, by G. Shaw-Lefevre, 1887; The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria, article on Sir R. Peel, by G. Barnett Smith, 1886; Biographical Studies, the Character of Sir Robert Peel, by W. Bagehot, 1856; The Commercial Policy of Pitt and Peel, 1847; Sir R. Peel's Essay on Sir R. Walpole, 1833, published in Miscellanies collected and edited by Earl Stanhope, 1863; Encyclopædia Britannica, article on Sir R. Peel, by Goldwin Smith. See also: Greville's Memoirs; Croker Papers; Wellington's Despatches and Correspondence, &c., new ser. vols. vi. vii. viii.; Baron Stockmar's Memoirs, vol. ii.; Walpole's Hist. of England, vols. i.–iv.; Life of Sir James Graham, by McCullagh Torrens, 1863, vol. ii.; Life of Lord G. Bentinck, by B. Disraeli, 1872; Life of Prince Consort, by Sir Theodore Martin, 1875–6, vols. i. ii.; Recollections and Suggestions, by Earl Russell, 1875, especially as to government of 1834–5, and the Maynooth grant in 1845; Life of Richard Cobden, by John Morley, 1881, vol. i.; Finance and Politics, by Sydney Buxton, 1888, vol. i.; Twenty Years of Financial Policy, by Sir S. Northcote, 1862; Cartoons, by H. B.; Cartoons, by Punch; The Administrations of Great Britain, 1783–1830, by Sir G. C. Lewis, 1864; The Runnymede Letters, 1835–6; Lord Beaconsfield's Correspondence with his Sister 1832–1852, 1886; Waagen's Treasures of Art in Great Britain; Mrs. Jameson's Private Galleries of Art; History of Toryism, article on Sir R. Peel, by T. E. Kebbel. The more important magazine articles are: Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. iv. 1874; Deutsche Zeitung, 16 July 1850; Quarterly, vols. lviii. lxx. lxxii. lxxviii. lxxxi. clxxiii.; Westminster, vol. lviii. (or ii. in new ser.); Edinburgh, vols. xlviii. clviii. clxxiv.; Macmillan, vols. xix., xxxi.; Blackwood, vol. cl.; Fraser, vol. xlii.; Nineteenth Century, vols. xi. xv. xviii. xxv. xxvii.] 

PEEL, ROBERT (1822–1895), third baronet, politician, eldest son of Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) [q. v.], the statesman, was born in London on 4 May 1822, and went to Harrow School in February 1835. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 26 May 1841, but did not take a degree. Entering the diplomatic service, he became an attaché to the British legation at Madrid on 18 June 1844. He was promoted to be secretary of legation in Switzerland on 2 May 1846, and was chargé d'affaires there in November 1846. On his father's death, on 2 July 1850, and his own succession to the baronetcy, he resigned his office at Berne. Entering the House of Commons as liberal-conservative member for his father's former constituency, Tamworth, on 19 July 1850, he had every opportunity open to him of taking a distinguished place in public life. He had a fine presence and gaiety of manner, and was popular in social life; while his oratorical gifts—a rich ringing voice, a perfect command of language, rare powers of irony, a capacity for producing unexpected rhetorical effects—ought to have rendered his success in parliament a certainty. But he used his abilities fitfully. The want of moral fibre in his volatile character, an absence of dignity, and an inability to accept a fixed political creed, prevented him from acquiring the confidence of his associates or of the public.

On 24 April 1854 he was shipwrecked off the coast of Genoa in the steamboat Ercolano, and only saved his life by swimming ashore on some portion of the wreck. From 29 March 1854 to 1859 he served as a captain in the Staffordshire yeomanry. In March 1855 Lord Palmerston, who had been foreign minister while Peel was in the diplomatic service, appointed him a junior lord of the admiralty. Henceforth he was regarded as a liberal, and his persistent advocacy of the liberation of Italy fully justified this view of his political opinions.

In July 1856 he acted as secretary to Lord Granville's special mission to Russia at the coronation of Alexander II. On 5 Jan. 1857, during a lecture delivered at the opening of the new library at Adderley Park, near Birmingham, he spoke discourteously of the Russian court and the court officials. The lecture was severely commented on by the Russian and French press, was the subject of a parliamentary debate, and caused great annoyance to the English court.

Nevertheless, on Palmerston's return to power, he, on 26 July 1861, made Peel chief secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland and a privy councillor. In this position his careless good humour pleased the Irish and the prime minister, and he almost thought he had solved the Irish question when he made excursions incognito through the country on a jaunting-car and interviewed the peasants. His speeches were very optimistic; but, before his connection with the castle ended, fenianism came to a head. Irish debates became more embittered, and his replies and speeches in parliament lacked discretion and were not calculated to promote peace. In February 1862 he received a