Arthur Peel, 1st Viscount Peel
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Arthur Wellesley Peel, 1st Viscount Peel, PC (3 August 1829 – 24 October 1912), was a British politician and Speaker of the British House of Commons from 1884 to 1895 .
He was the youngest son of the Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, and was named after the Duke of Wellington. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford. He was Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Warwick from 1865 to 1885, and for Warwick and Leamington from 1885 to 1895.
From 1868 to 1873 he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Poor Law Board, and then became Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. In 1873–1874 he was patronage secretary to the Treasury, and in 1880 he became Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs in the second Gladstone government.
On the retirement of Henry Brand in 1884, Peel was elected Speaker. Throughout his career as Speaker, the Encyclopædia Britannica says, "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." Though now officially impartial - Peel left the Liberal Party over the issue of Home Rule and became a Liberal Unionist.
In 1895 he retired and was created Viscount Peel. In 1896 he was chairman of a Royal Commission into the licensing laws. The Peel Report recommended that the number of licensed houses should greatly reduced. This report was a valuable weapon in the hands of reformers. Peel was also an important ally of Charles Bradlaugh in Bradlaugh's attempt to have the oath of allegiance changed to permit non-Christians, agnostics and atheists to serve in the House of Commons.
He married Adelaide Dugdale, and they had a son William Wellesley Peel, who succeeded his father as Viscount Peel and was later created Earl Peel in 1929.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
