Peel, Sir Robert, 1788-1850, British statesman. The son of a rich cotton manufacturer, whose baronetcy he inherited in 1830, Peel entered Parliament as a Tory in 1809. He served (1812-18) as chief secretary for Ireland, where he maintained order by the establishment of a police force and consistently opposed Irish demands for Catholic Emancipation. In 1819 he was chairman of the parliamentary currency committee that recommended and secured Britain's return to the gold standard. As home secretary (1822-27, 1828-30) Peel succeeded in reforming the criminal laws and established (1829) the London police force, whose members came to be called Peelers or Bobbies. Early in his career Peel scrupulously defended Tory interests, but he gradually came to believe in the need for change. The first sign of a modified outlook was in his sponsorship (1829) of the bill enabling Roman Catholics to sit in the House of Commons. In opposing parliamentary reform he recovered some of the Tory support that he lost by this position, and after the Reform Bill of 1832 (see Reform Acts) had passed despite his opposition, he rallied the party and was prime minister for a brief term (1834-35). In 1834, however, Peel made the election speech known as the Tamworth manifesto, in which he explained that his party accepted the Reform Bill and would work for further changes but "without infringing on established rights." This statement came to be regarded as the manifesto for the Conservative party now emerging, under Peel's leadership, from the old Tory party. Among the able young men who rallied around Peel were William Ewart Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli. Peel was asked to form a cabinet in 1839 but declined when the young Queen Victoria refused to make requested changes in her household. He returned to power in 1841, however, and the reshaped party attitudes were very apparent in his new ministry, which introduced an income tax and a revised system of banking control, gave aid to the Irish Catholic Church, and attempted Irish land reform. Of far greater importance were the virtual abandonment of custom duties and the repeal of the corn laws. Peel had formerly defended these laws, which protected Tory agricultural interests, but he was impressed by the arguments of Richard Cobden against them and convinced by the disastrous effect of the potato famine in Ireland. The laws were repealed in June, 1846, but Peel's action split his party, and he resigned from office after a tactical defeat within the same month. Much abused as an apostate during his lifetime, Peel is now recognized as a practical statesman of forward-looking views and great courage. His memoirs were posthumously published (1856). His correspondence and private letters were edited by C. S. Parker (3 vol., 1891-99) and later by George Peel (1920).

Sir Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Baronet FRS (12 January 1786–5 May 1855) was an English Conservative politician, noted for his staunch High church views.

He was the son of Sir Hugh Inglis, a minor politician and MP for Ashburton (1802-1806). Robert, who succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1820, was MP for Dundalk 1824-1826, Ripon 1828-1829 and Oxford University from 1829 to 1854.

Inglis was strongly opposed to measures which, in his view, weakened the Anglican Church. When Robert Grant, MP for Inverness Burghs (UK Parliament constituency), petitioned for Jewish relief in 1830, Inglis was violently opposed. Inglis alleged that the Jews were an alien people, with no allegiance to England, and that to admit Jews to parliament would "separate Christianity itself from the State." He also alleged that if they were admitted to parliament "within seven years...Parliamentary Reform would be carried." Inglis was joined in his public opposition by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Goulburn, and the Solicitor General and future Lord Chancellor, Sir Edward Sugden. Although the Jews were not emancipated fully until 1858, Parliamentary Reform occurred in 1832, just two years later. Inglis also likened Buddhism to "idolatry" in connection with the British colony of Ceylon during a debate over the relationship of "Buddhist priests" to the British colonial government in 1852.

In 1845 he broke with Sir Robert Peel and opposed the Maynooth Grant, which would have granted a yearly £26,000 subsidy to the Catholic Maynooth seminary. Other opponents included, oddly enough, John Bright and Benjamin Disraeli, although on different grounds.

In 1851, when Lord Stanley (who became the Earl of Derby later that year) attempted to form a protectionist administration, Inglis was offered the presidency of the Board of Control, which he accepted initially, only to withdraw a few days later. A major activity of Inglis's political career was the chairing of the select committee that controlled the House of Commons Library, of which he was a member for 14 years. However, his rather narrow view of its scope was overturned by Sir Robert Peel in 1850. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1854, and died the next year, at the age of 69. On his death the baronetcy became extinct.

Inglis's Journals are in the Canterbury cathedral Library and archives.

Errata

Disraeli apparently viewed Inglis with contempt, and described him as "a wretched speaker, an offensive voice, no power of expression, yet perpetually recalling and correcting his cumbersome phraseology."

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