Intriguing History

Sir Robert Peel the Prime Minister who creates the Metropolitan Police helps emancipate Catholics in Britain to avoid the potential for civil war and repeals the repressive Corn Laws even when it mean’t division in his own ranks. He showed the ability to be pragrmatic, transition and change course on the big issues that mattered. The son of a wealthy industrialist whilst educated at the right schools and Oxford, he largely was still seen as an outsider amongst the old elite, the land-owners and aristocrats that had dominated the Commons and the Lords. But despite his wealthy background history gives us a glimpse of man that can make the right decisions even when it will be a more difficult path to follow. One in our series of profiles about British Prime Ministers linked to related articles, periods and historic themes.