William Peel, 1st Earl Peel

William Peel, 1st Earl Peel (1936)

William Robert Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel GCSI GBE PC ( January 7, 1867 - September 28, 1937 ) was a British politician of the Unionist Party and later the Conservative Party , who for several years was a member of the House of Commons and among others Was Minister for India , Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Lord Seal Keeper . In 1912 he inherited the title of 2nd Viscount Peel from his father and was a member of the House of Lords until his death . In 1929 he was also 1st  Earl Peel .

Life

Origin, lawyer and member of the House of Commons

He was the son of Arthur Wellesley Peel and his wife Adelaide Dugdale. His grandfather Robert Peel was Prime Minister from 1834 to 1835 and from 1841 to 1846 .

After attending school, he himself completed a law degree and, after being admitted to the bar ( Inns of Court ) of Inner Temple in 1893, began working as a lawyer .

On May 25, 1900, Peel was elected as a candidate for the Liberal Unionists for the first time as a member of the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Manchester South there until January 12, 1906 . In addition, he was from 1900 to 1904 also a member of the London County Council (LCC) as a representative of the constituency of Woolwich . In 1907 he was re-elected a member of the LCC and was a member of the LCC until 1910 as a representative of the Kensington constituency . During this time he served from March 11, 1908 to March 8, 1910 in the LCC as leader of the moderates, the so-called Municipal Reform Party .

In the meantime he was re-elected as a member of the House of Commons on February 23, 1909 in the constituency of Taunton .

House of Lords and Junior Minister

When his father died on October 24, 1912, he inherited the title of 2nd Viscount Peel from him and, associated with it, membership in the House of Lords, to which he belonged until his death. He had to give up his seat in the House of Commons. At the same time he was again a member of London County County from 1913 to 1919, this time representing the constituency of Kensington . He also served as chairman of the LCC from 1914 to 1919.

During the First World War , Viscount Peel served as Lieutenant Colonel between 1914 and 1918 with the Bedfordshire Yeomanry and was most recently the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of National Service of the Lloyd George Government from 1917 to 1919 . For his services, he was raised to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1919 .

After the end of the war, he was Undersecretary of State in the War and Aviation Ministry from 1919 to 1921, as well as Vice President of the Army Council, and in 1919 he was also appointed Privy Counselor .

minister

In the coalition government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George , Viscount Peel took over the offices of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lanchaster and Minister of Transport in 1921 and held both offices until March 1922. Lloyd George appointed him on March 19, 1922 as part of a cabinet reshuffle as Secretary of State for India . He also held this office in the two subsequent governments of the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin until January 23, 1924.

After Baldwin had again taken over the office of Prime Minister on November 6, 1924, he became Minister for Public Works (First Commissioner of Works) . As part of a cabinet reshuffle, he took over on October 18, 1928 from Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead again the office of Minister for India and held this office until the end of Baldwin's term on June 4, 1929. After leaving the government, he was raised to 1st Earl Peel on July 10, 1929 and was also given the subordinate title of 1st Viscount Clanfield , of Clanfield in the County of Southampton.

After the formation of the National Government , a coalition of the Labor Party and Conservative Party under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald , on August 25, 1931, Earl Peel acted as Lord Privy Seal . In 1931 he was also chairman of the Burma Round Table Conference , which, like the British Indian Round Table Conference in London , dealt with the future of British India , of which Burma had been part since 1886 . For his services there, he was appointed Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India (GCSI) in 1932 .

Earl Peel was chairman of the Wheat Commission in 1932 and again looked at the future of British India from 1933 to 1934 as a member of the Indian Joint Committee . He was then chairman of the Royal Commission on the Despatch of Business at Common Law , a royal commission that dealt with issues related to commercial law in common law . He then acted from 1936 to 1937 as chairman of the Royal Commission on Palastine , which dealt with the League of Nations mandate for Palestine . In addition, he was a member of the Royal Commission for the Port of London (Royal Commission for the Port of London) and administrator (governor) of the Victoria University of Manchester .

Family and offspring

On April 11, 1889 he married Eleanor Williamson, the only daughter of James Williamson , who, among other things, represented the constituency of North Lancashire between 1886 and 1895 as a member of the House of Commons and by a letters patent dated July 25, 1895 as 1st Baron Ashton , of Ashton, in the County of Lancaster was also raised to hereditary nobility.

From this marriage a daughter, Doris Peel, and the son Arthur William Ashton Peel, Viscount Clanfield emerged, who inherited his nobility title after the death of his father.

Web links

• William Peel at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• William Robert Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel on thepeerage.com , accessed August 21, 2015.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Earl Peel 1929-1937	Arthur Peel
Arthur Wellesley Peel	Viscount Peel 1912-1937	Arthur Peel
David Lindsay	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1921-1922	William Sutherland
Eric Geddes	British Minister of Transport 1921–1922	David Lindsay
Edwin Samuel Montagu	Secretary of State for India 1922-1924	Sydney Olivier
Frederick Edwin Smith	Secretary of State for India 1928-1929	William Wedgwood Benn
Thomas Johnston	Lord Seal Keeper 1931	Philip Snowden