Robert Peel
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Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet,, was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–1835). He previously served twice as Home Secretary. He is regarded as the father of modern British policing, owing to his founding of the Metropolitan Police Service while he was Home Secretary. Peel was one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party.
Portrait by Henry William Pickersgill
Christ Church, Oxford, which Peel attended 1805–1808, graduating with a double first. He was later MP for the university, 1817–1829.
The Duke of Wellington, prime minister 1828–1830, with Peel
This satirical 1829 cartoon by William Heath depicted the Duke of Wellington and Peel in the roles of the body-snatchers Burke and Hare suffocating Mrs Docherty for sale to Dr. Knox; representing the extinguishing by Wellington and Peel of the 141-year-old Constitution of 1688 by Catholic Emancipation.
History of the Conservative Party (UK)
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The Conservative Party is the oldest political party in the United Kingdom and second in the world. The current party was first organised in the 1830s and the name "Conservative" was officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the Tory party. The Tories had been a coalition that more often than not formed the government from 1760 until the Reform Act 1832. Modernising reformers said the traditionalistic party of "Throne, Altar and Cottage" was obsolete, but in the face of an expanding electorate 1830s–1860s it held its strength among royalists, devout Anglicans and landlords and their tenants.
Robert Peel, founder and first Conservative Party Prime Minister (1788–1850)
Movie star George Arliss won an Oscar in 1929 for portraying Disraeli as a paternalistic, kindly, homely statesman running a benevolent British Empire
1929 poster criticising the Labour Party
Conservative Prime Minister (1923–1924, 1924–1929 and 1935–1937) Stanley Baldwin.