Robert Peel

Robert Peel was born in Lancashire in 1788, the son of a wealthy cotton manufacturer and MP. He entered Parliament in 1809 and at first opposed Catholic emancipation, earning the nickname Orange Peel. As Home Secretary from 1822 he reformed the criminal law and prisons, and in 1829 he created the Metropolitan Police and steered Catholic emancipation through Parliament. His Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 set out principles for a reformed Conservative Party. He was Prime Minister in 1834-1835 and 1841-1846. His second government faced economic hardship and unemployment, and he restored the income tax in order to reduce tariffs. He resigned in June 1846, on the day the Corn Laws were repealed, after a defeat on another bill, and died in 1850 after a riding accident.

Admirers see Peel as the founder of modern conservatism and a pragmatic reformer who put national interest above party, pointing to policing, penal reform and free trade. Critics in his own party, led by Disraeli, accused him of betraying the landed interest and his election commitments over the Corn Laws and Catholic emancipation. The split of 1846 kept the Conservatives largely out of majority government for a generation. Historians continue to debate whether his changes of position reflected principle or expediency.