Robert Peel

Trivia

• Peel was thrown from his horse while riding up Constitution Hill in London on 29 June 1850, the horse stumbled on top of him and he died three days later on 2 July at the age of 62.
• Peel was selected as Prime Minister but was in Italy at the time, so Wellington acted as a caretaker for the three weeks until Peel's return.
• Robert Peel developed the Peelian Principles which defined the ethical requirements police officers must follow in order to be effective.
• In 1829 Peel established the Metropolitan Police Force for London based at Scotland Yard.
• Peel was considered one of the rising stars of the Tory party, first entering the cabinet in 1822 as Home Secretary.
• Peel entered politics at the young age of 21 as MP for the Irish rotten borough of Cashel, Tipperary.
• Robert Peel was the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846.

Quotes

• "There seem to me to be very few facts, at least ascertainable facts, in politics."
• "The Reform Bill has destroyed the ancient conduits and strainers, and brings Public Opinion to act upon the government with the rapid, turbulent, and uncertain violence of a flood! "
• "The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. "
• "Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs. "
• "On the Wednesday evening - that is, the day I saw her Majesty on this particular point - I had the opportunity of conferring with all those whom I proposed to submit to her Majesty as Ministers. "
• "No minister ever stood, or could stand, against public opinion. "
• "But after this natural burst of indignation, no man of sense, courage, or prudence will waste his time or his strength in retrospective reproaches or repinings. "
• “It's nice to know when people get together in a community that stuff can get done that makes a difference.”
• “Agitation is the marshalling of the conscience of a nation to mold its laws.”