Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Robert_Peel,_1st_Baronet

Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet (25 April 1750 – 3 May 1830), was a British politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. He was the father of Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Background

Peel's father Robert Peel and grandfather William Peel were yeoman farmers who were also engaged in the infant textile industry, then organised on the basis of the domestic system (most of the work being undertaken in the home).

Business career

Like many others, Peel joined partnerships in order to raise the capital required to set up spinning mills. These were water powered (usually utilising the water frame invented by Richard Arkwright), and thus located by rivers and streams in country districts. Thus Peel and Yates set up a mill and housing for their workers at Burrs near Bury. As elsewhere, the shortage of labour in the rural districts was mitigating by employing pauper children as 'apprentices', imported from any locality that wanted them off their hands. They were housed in a kind of hostel.

Peel became quite rich, and lived at Chamber Hall in Bury, where his more famous son was born. Peel was listed as a subscriber to the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal navigation in 1791.[1] He also built the first factory in nearby Radcliffe.

Political career

In politics, Peel was a staunch 'Church and King' man – in other words, a Tory. This was unusual, as many of the Lancashire mill owners were nonconformist and radical in their outlook. He was a paternalist towards his workforce. When elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth, he carried these principles into political life. He was responsible for the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, legislation that tried to limit the number of hours the children worked in the mills, and obliged the mill owners to privide some form of schooling. In 1800 he was created a Baronet, of Drayton Manor in the County of Stafford and of Bury in the County Palatine of Lancaster.[2] In later years, he purchased property near Tamworth and started to adopt the lifestyle of a country gentleman, far removed from his roots.

Family

Peel married as his first wife Ellen Yates (the daughter of his partner) on 8 July 1783. They had eleven children, including:

   * Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

   * William Yates Peel, politician.

   * General Jonathan Peel, soldier and politician.

   * Laurence Peel (b. 1801), who married Lady Jane Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond.

   * Harriet Peel, who married the 2nd Baron Henley.

After the death of his first wife, Peel married Susanna Clerke (sister of Sir William Clerke) on 18 October 1805. The marriage was unsuccessful and the couple eventually separated, with Susanna moving to Warwickshire. She died on 10 September 1824. Sir Robert was at the time unwell and his children represented him at the funeral.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ A list of the subscribers to the intended Bolton Bury and Manchester Canal Navigation. Greater Manchester County Records Office, ref. E4/78/419: Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Company. 1791. 

  2. ^ London Gazette: no. 15307. p. 1244. 1 November 1800.

  3. ^ Gash, 33.

References

   * Gash, Norman (1961). Mr. Secretary Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel to 1830. New York: Longmans. 

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Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet (25 April 1750 – 3 May 1830), was a British politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. He was the father of Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Peel's father Robert Peel and grandfather William Peel were yeoman farmers who were also engaged in the infant textile industry, then organised on the basis of the domestic system (most of the work being undertaken in the home).

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Robert Peel (1750-1830)

Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet, (1750–1830), father of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, was a politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the industrial revolution.

1750 April 25th. Born the son of Robert Peel (1723-1795)

For most of the 1780s, Livesey, Hargreaves and Co of Preston was the largest of the Lancashire calico printers, but the collapse of this leviathan of the trade in 1788 left Peel, Yates and Co of Bury as undisputed leaders.

1783 July 8th. Peel married firstly Ellen Yates (the daughter of his partner William Yates) and they had eleven children, including:

   Robert Peel, M.P., second baronet.

William Yates Peel, born at Chamber Hall, Bury, August 3, 1789. He owns an extensive property in various cotton-factories and warehouses in Lancashire, all of which are leased to manufacturers. He married, in 1819, Jane Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Mountcashel, and by her has had sixteen children, most of whom are alive, and some married.
Edmond Yates Peel, born at Chamber Hall, Bury, August 8, 1791. He married in 1812, Jane, daughter of John Swinfen, Esq., of Swinfen, Staffordshire, and has issue three sons. This gentleman resides at Bonehill, near to Fazeley and Tamworth, and holds in his own occupation extensive bleach-works and spinning mills. He is also distinguished for his agricultural experiments and his successful breeding of race-horses.
John Peel, LL.B., Dean of Worcester, born at Chamber Hall, August 22, 1798. He married in 1824, Augusta, fifth daughter of John Swinfen Esq., of Swinfen. After an absence of forty years from Bury, he was present at the inauguration of Sir Robert Peel's statue, 8th September, 1852.
Jonathan, a major-general in the army, but not recently employed. He is the 'Colonel Peel' so well known for many years on the turf as a successful horse-racer, in connection with the late Lord George Bentinck. He was born at Chamber Hall, October 12, 1799. He married, in 1824, Alicia Jane Kennedy, youngest daughter of Archibald, marquis of Ailsa. Their issue are five sons and one daughter; several of the sons, as also their cousins, sons of William and Edmund, are in the army, and some in the church.
Sir Lawrence Peel (1801-), born at Chamber Hall (date uncertain), made a knight in 1842; married, in 1822, Jane Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond.
Mary Peel, born at Chamber Hall; married, in 1816, to the Right Hon. George Dawson, of Castle Dawson, county of Derry, Ireland.
Elizabeth Peel, born at Chamber Hall, died in 1828; was married, in 1805, to the Very Reverend William Cockburn, Dean of York.
Harriet Eleonora Peel, born at Chamber Hall, was married, in 1824, to the late Lord Henley, a Master in Chancery, and had a family.
1787 Peel was the foremost partner in an integrated spinning, weaving, and finishing operation at three sites in Bolton. The other partners were the Ainsworths, already noticed as pioneers of muslin manufacture and then of chemical bleaching in the area. Hand-loom weavers were in short supply, so Peel, Ainsworth and Co employed them as far away as Warrington, Burnley, Chorley, Wigan, and even Paisley in Scotland.

Like many others, he joined partnerships in order to raise the capital required to set up spinning mills. These were water powered (usually utilising the water frame invented by Richard Arkwright), and thus located by rivers and streams in country districts. Thus Peel and Yates set up a mill and housing for their workers at Burrs near Bury. As elsewhere, the shortage of labour in the rural districts was mitigating by employing pauper children as 'apprentices', imported from any locality that wanted them off their hands. They were housed in a kind of hostel.

Peel became quite rich, and lived at Chamber Hall in Bury, where his more famous son was born.

In politics, he was a staunch 'Church and King' man - in other words, a Tory. This was unusual, as many of the Lancashire mill owners were nonconformist and radical in their outlook.

He was a paternalist towards his workforce. When elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth, he carried these principles into political life. He was responsible for the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, legislation that tried to limit the number of hours the children worked in the mills, and obliged the mill owners to provide some form of schooling.

In later years, he purchased property near Tamworth and started to adopt the lifestyle of a country gentleman, far removed from his roots.

1805 October 18th. After the death of his first wife, Peel married Susanna Clerke (sister of Sir William Clerke). The marriage was unsuccessful and the couple eventually separated, with Susanna moving to Warwickshire. She died on 10 September 1824. Sir Robert was at the time unwell and his children represented him at the funeral.

1831 May 3rd. Died

Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet was a British politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. He was the father of Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Peel's father Robert Peel and grandfather William Peele were yeoman farmers who were also engaged in the infant textile industry, then organised on the basis of the domestic system (most of the work being undertaken in the home).

Like many others, Peel joined partnerships to raise the capital required to set up spinning mills. These were water powered (usually using the water frame invented by Richard Arkwright), and thus located by rivers and streams in country districts. Thus Peel and Yates set up a mill and housing for their workers at Burrs near Bury. As elsewhere, the shortage of labour in the rural districts was mitigated by employing pauper children as 'apprentices', imported from any locality that wanted them off their hands. They were housed in a kind of hostel.

Peel became quite rich, and lived at Chamber Hall in Bury, where his more famous son was born. Peel was listed as a subscriber to the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal navigation in 1791. He also built the first factory in nearby Radcliffe.

In politics, Peel was a 'Church and King' Tory and a staunch supporter of William Pitt the Younger. This was unusual, as many of the Lancashire mill owners were nonconformist and radical in their outlook. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth, having bought the borough along with Lord Bath's estate in the area, and carried these principles into political life. He made Drayton Manor in Staffordshire his principal residence and started to adopt the lifestyle of a country gentleman. In 1800 he was created a Baronet, of Drayton Manor in the County of Stafford and of Bury in the County Palatine of Lancaster. Concerned at the working conditions for children in the cotton industry, and even more concerned that some of his mills had been run by their 'overseers' (managers) contrary to his own paternalistic intentions, in 1802, he introduced the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, legislation that tried to limit the number of hours that apprentice children worked in the mills, and obliged the mill owners to provide some form of schooling. In 1815, at the urging of Robert Owen, he introduced a Bill introducing stricter limits on the hours children (whether or not apprentices) could work in textile mills; in 1819 this was passed (heavily amended, and applying only to the cotton industry) as the Cotton Mills and Factories Act. In 1817, he retired from business, the various partnerships which had operated his mills being dissolved. In the 1818 General Election, Peel and his son William had been the two MPs returned by Tamworth in a contested election; in 1820 Peel left Parliament (restoring the traditional arrangement at Tamworth of returning un-contested one MP of the proprietor's choosing and one representing other local interests).

He cried and kissed me two or three times. He is very feeble, and his voice very faint, but he was sitting in his dressing gown in his sitting room upstairs... He is much thinner and feebler than when we were here in the autumn
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet regarding the last time he saw his father alive.

Peel married as his first wife Ellen Yates (the daughter of his partner) on 8 July 1783. They had eleven children, including:

Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. William Yates Peel, MP and politician. married Lady Jane Elizabeth Moore, daughter of Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mount Cashell and his wife Margaret King. Edmund Peel, MP and politician General Jonathan Peel, soldier, politician and owner of racehorses (including 'Orlando', the winner of the 'Running Rein' Derby of 1844) Laurence Peel (b. 1801), MP and politician, who married Lady Jane Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond; described by one historian as "the youngest and least talented, but perhaps the most personally attractive of the Peel brothers". Harriet Peel, who married the 2nd Baron Henley. Mary Peel who married Rt Hon George Robert Dawson and was mother to Lord Moyola's mother's father's mother. Peel had high hopes for his children, especially his eldest son, Robert, who he would make repeat the substance of each Sunday's sermon after mass. Peel accepted that he would not mingle with high society, but intended to prepare his son to be able to.

After the death of his first wife, Peel married Susanna Clerke (sister of Sir William Clerke) on 18 October 1805. The marriage was unsuccessful and the couple eventually separated, with Susanna moving to Warwickshire. She died on 10 September 1824. Sir Robert was at the time unwell and his children represented him at the funeral.

In April 1830, Sir Robert was growing frail, though he still played whist until he was too weak to deal. He was too proud to allow his nephew to deal for him, so stopped playing. Peel died in his armchair, peacefully and without anyone noticing until hours later.

When writing the biography of his son Robert, Douglas Hurd stated that Peel had "a good life, well sustained by family pleasures, worldly success, orthodox Christian faith and a strong practical mind". His funeral was attended by the entire "corporation of Tamworth" and sixty tenants on horseback.

In his will, an equal amount to each of his sons, except Robert, to whom he left all his lands and four times the assets left to the other sons. Peel had given Robert £230,000 during his lifetime, plus £100,000 on the event of his marriage and willed him a further £154,000.

GEDCOM Note

Source: Wikipedia

Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet (25 April 1750 – 3 May 1830), was a British politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. He was the father of Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Peel's father Robert Peel and grandfather William Peele were yeoman farmers who were also engaged in the infant textile industry, then organised on the basis of the domestic system (most of the work being undertaken in the home).

Like many others, Peel joined partnerships to raise the capital required to set up spinning mills. These were water powered (usually using the water frame invented by Richard Arkwright), and thus located by rivers and streams in country districts. Thus Peel and Yates set up a mill and housing for their workers at Burrs near Bury. As elsewhere, the shortage of labour in the rural districts was mitigated by employing pauper children as 'apprentices', imported from any locality that wanted them off their hands. They were housed in a kind of hostel.

Peel became quite rich, and lived at Chamber Hall in Bury, where his more famous son was born. Peel was listed as a subscriber to the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal navigation in 1791. He also built the first factory in nearby Radcliffe.

In politics, Peel was a 'Church and King' Tory and a staunch supporter of William Pitt the Younger. This was unusual, as many of the Lancashire mill owners were nonconformist and radical in their outlook. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth, having bought the borough along with Lord Bath's estate in the area, and carried these principles into political life. He made Drayton Manor in Staffordshire his principal residence and started to adopt the lifestyle of a country gentleman. In 1800 he was created a Baronet, of Drayton Manor in the County of Stafford and of Bury in the County Palatine of Lancaster.

Concerned at the working conditions for children in the cotton industry, and even more concerned that some of his mills had been run by their 'overseers' (managers) contrary to his own paternalistic intentions, in 1802, he introduced the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, legislation that tried to limit the number of hours that apprentice children worked in the mills, and obliged the mill owners to provide some form of schooling. In 1815, at the urging of Robert Owen, he introduced a Bill introducing stricter limits on the hours children (whether or not apprentices) could work in textile mills; in 1819 this was passed (heavily amended, and applying only to the cotton industry) as the Cotton Mills and Factories Act. In 1817, he retired from business, the various partnerships which had operated his mills being dissolved.[3] In the 1818 General Election, Peel and his son William had been the two MPs returned by Tamworth in a contested election ; in 1820 Peel left Parliament (restoring the traditional arrangement at Tamworth of returning un-contested one MP of the proprietor's choosing and one representing other local interests).

"He cried and kissed me two or three times. He is very feeble, and his voice very faint, but he was sitting in his dressing gown in his sitting room upstairs... He is much thinner and feebler than when we were here in the autumn." Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet regarding the last time he saw his father alive.

Peel married as his first wife Ellen Yates (the daughter of his partner) on 8 July 1783. They had eleven children, including:

1. Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

2. William Yates Peel, MP and politician. married Lady Jane Elizabeth Moore, daughter of Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mount Cashell and his wife Margaret King.

3. Edmund Peel, MP and politician

4. General Jonathan Peel, soldier, politician and owner of racehorses (including 'Orlando' , the winner of the 'Running Rein' Derby of 1844)

5. Laurence Peel (b. 1801), MP and politician, who married Lady Jane Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond; described by one historian as "the youngest and least talented, but perhaps the most personally attractive of the Peel brothers."

6. Harriet Peel, who married the 2nd Baron Henley.

7. Mary Peel who married Rt Hon George Robert Dawson and was mother to Lord Moyola's mother's father's mother.

Sir Robert Peel had high hopes for his children, especially his eldest son, Robert, who he would make repeat the substance of each Sunday's sermon after mass. Peel accepted that he would not mingle with high society, but intended to prepare his son to be able to.

After the death of his first wife, Peel married Susanna Clerke (sister of Sir William Clerke) on 18 October 1805. The marriage was unsuccessful and the couple eventually separated, with Susanna moving to Warwickshire. She died on 10 September 1824. Sir Robert was at the time unwell and his children represented him at the funeral.

In April 1830, Sir Robert was growing frail, though he still played whist until he was too weak to deal. He was too proud to allow his nephew to deal for him, so stopped playing. Peel died in his armchair, peacefully and without anyone noticing until hours later.

When writing the biography of his son Robert, Douglas Hurd stated that Peel had "a good life, well sustained by family pleasures, worldly success, orthodox Christian faith and a strong practical mind" His funeral was attended by the entire "corporation of Tamworth" and sixty tenants on horseback.

In his will, an equal amount to each of his sons, except Robert, to whom he left all his lands and four times the assets left to the other sons. Peel had given Robert £230,000 during his lifetime, plus £100,000 on the event of his marriage and willed him a further £154,000.