Prime minister and Conservative leader

In the reform crisis following Wellington’s fall, Peel’s position was difficult and ambiguous. Though not opposed to moderate parliamentary reform, he was shocked by the sweeping measure introduced by the ministry of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, in March 1831. But, on the other hand, he made no effort to conciliate the ultra-Tories, and his refusal to form a new ministry with Wellington and pass a Tory reform bill in 1832 further weakened his standing with his former followers. Yet he was already looking to the growth of conservative opinion in the country, and his moderation in the first reformed Parliament (1833–34) did much to restore his political stature. The premature dismissal of the ministry of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, in November 1834 and Peel’s appointment as prime minister gave him an impossible task because he did not possess, and the Conservative Party lacked the organization and men necessary to procure, a majority in the House of Commons (even though the general election of 1835 added considerably to their numbers). Nevertheless, his Tamworth Manifesto was an epoch-making statement of the new Conservative reform principles, and for the first time the party came under his acknowledged leadership. In April 1835, defeated by a combination of Whigs, radicals, and Irish nationalists, he resigned his office. During the next six years, aided by his astute and cautious tactics, the Conservative Party steadily increased in numbers and confidence. Following the general election of 1841, in which he gained a majority of more than 70 in the House of Commons, Peel formed an administration that was one of the most memorable of the century.

Peel was faced with war in China and Afghanistan, strained relations with France and the United States, severe commercial distress at home, agitation by the workingmen’s reform movement of the Chartists and the Anti-Corn Law League, O’Connell’s campaign for the repeal of the union of Ireland and Great Britain, and a five-year accumulation of budgetary deficits. His policy aimed at peace and security abroad, a reduction in the cost of living for the working classes, and encouragement to trade and industry. On the controversial issue of the Corn Laws, to which the landed interest in his party was very sensitive, he brought forward as one of his first measures a new bill drastically reducing the scale of protective duties. In the same year, the bold reintroduction of the income tax (originally instituted during the Napoleonic Wars) established internal revenue on a sound footing and enabled him to make sweeping reductions of duties on food and raw materials entering the country. The Bank Charter Act of 1844, establishing a tight connection between note issue and gold reserves, completed the foundations of the Victorian banking and currency system. The success of these measures encouraged Peel to launch a second great free-trade budget in 1845. The income tax was renewed, and there was another, even more massive round of tariff reductions.

With the return of prosperity, Chartism died down, and the Anti-Corn Law League turned to more constitutional methods of agitation. Abroad, a firm but conciliatory policy led to better relations with France. The boundary disputes with the United States were settled by the mission of Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton, in 1842 and the Oregon treaty of 1846. The same combination of firmness and conciliation was followed in Ireland. Once the threatening campaign for repeal of the union had been brought to a halt in 1843 with O’Connell’s trial for conspiracy, Peel turned to more constructive measures. A commission was set up to inquire into the relations between landlord and tenant, and a wide scheme for Irish university education was passed into law in 1845.

The liberality of Peel’s Irish policy, especially the greatly increased grant to the Catholic seminary of Maynooth, aroused strong Protestant feeling in England, severely straining relations with his own party. The potato disease in 1845, bringing with it the certainty of widespread famine in Ireland, completed the breach. Peel had already come to the conviction that the Corn Laws would have to be abolished sooner or later. His decision in the autumn of 1845 that a relief program for Ireland had to be accompanied by the repeal of the Corn Laws split his Cabinet and led to his resignation. But, when Lord John Russell failed to form a free-trade ministry in December 1845, Peel returned to office. After savage parliamentary debates the repeal of the Corn Laws was finally carried through in June 1846. Peel believed that the attempt to preserve the Corn Laws in the changed social and political conditions of Britain would imperil the rule of the aristocracy. Nevertheless, a majority of his party voted against him, and a smaller number joined the opposition to bring about his defeat and resignation later the same month. For the rest of his career he dedicated himself to the support of free-trade principles and the maintenance of Russell’s Whig ministry as the only safeguard against a protectionist government. He died in 1850 as a result of a riding accident.

Legacy

A proud, shy person, Peel was by nature quick-tempered, courageous, stubborn, and often autocratic. With a first-class intellect, an exact memory, and great capacity for work, he was a superb administrator and an outstanding parliamentary debater. Though he has an unchallenged place as founder of the modern Conservative Party, his political outlook was formed in the pre-reform era. He regarded ministers of the crown as servants of the state rather than as mouthpieces for sectional or party views. By insisting on fundamental changes in the national interest, he did much to preserve the continuity of aristocratic parliamentary government in an age of rapid industrial change, social distress, and class conflict. More than any other, he was the architect of the mid-Victorian age of stability and prosperity that he did not live to see. Though he founded the Conservative Party, Peel took the lead in developing a whole series of liberal measures in government, measures that characterized Liberal as well as Conservative politics in the 19th century. He thus served to develop a governmental liberalism that unified much of the outlook of party politicians, who were otherwise divided on political lines.