Sir Robert Peel

The Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830

Norman Gash

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571279623
• Year: 2011

Norman Gash's magnificent two-volume life of Sir Robert Peel - Mr Secretary Peel (1961) and Sir Robert Peel (1972) - is the standard work on the great statesman, and is widely considered one of the great biographies of nineteenth-century prime ministers. Faber Finds is delighted to return both to print.

In this second volume, Gash focuses on the years between 1830 and 1850, the height of Peel's political career, which included his two terms as prime minister, the controversial repeal of the Corn Laws, and his reform of the Conservative Party.

'In ... his masterly biography, covering Peel's career from the Reform Crisis to his untimely death in 1850, Professor Gash shows himself not merely an admirer but an emulator - brilliant intellect, master of detail, man of conservative but humane conscience.' Harold Perkin, Guardian

'Norman Gash's Sir Robert Peel shows how high and austere academic writing about a major figure is compatible with an outstanding general biography.' Roy Jenkins, Observer

'In Mr Secretary Peel, the first volume of this biography, he provided a rich and perceptive portrait of a statesman in the making. Now at last he has completed one of the great biographies of our time.' Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph

'Sir Robert Peel by Norman Gash ranks with the great political biographies of the past, a classic work in both scholarship and presentation.' A. J. P. Taylor, New Statesman

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• FOREWORD
• CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
• Family Tree
• PRELUDE
• CHAPTER 1 : THE CRISIS OF REFORM
• CHAPTER 2 : CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION
• CHAPTER 3 : THE HUNDRED DAYS
• CHAPTER 4 : PEERS AND COMMONERS
• CHAPTER 5 : SQUIRE OF DRAYTON
• CHAPTER 6 : MONARCH AND MINISTERS
• CHAPTER 7 : THE YEAR OF VICTORY
• CHAPTER 8 : THE NEW MINISTRY
• CHAPTER 9 : THE GREAT BUDGET
• CHAPTER 10 : DISTRESS AND DISORDER
• CHAPTER 11 : MIDPASSAGE
• CHAPTER 12 : THE SERBONIAN BOG
• CHAPTER 13 : DIFFICULTIES AND DISSENSIONS
• CHAPTER 14 : THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF EMPIRE
• CHAPTER 15 : THE AUTUMN OF CRISIS
• CHAPTER 16 : THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS
• CHAPTER 17 : PEELITES, WHIGS AND PROTECTIONISTS
• CHAPTER 18 : PEEL AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
• EPILOGUE
• SOME MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL
• BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
• BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE TO NEW EDITION
• INDEX
• About the Author
• Copyright