Robert Peel: life of the week
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Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures, from ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies. He established the Metropolitan Police. became embroiled in years of bitter disputes over the Corn laws, and was vilified for his political U-turns. During his political career in the first half of the 19th century, including two tenures as Prime Minister, Robert Peel didn't always have an easy ride. But, as historian and biographer Richard Gaunt tells Ellie Cawthorne in this Life of the Week episode, Peel's political impact can still be felt today.
Today we're going to be talking about Robert Peel. Before we get into his life and his legacy, can you give us, Richard, a short introduction to Peel? Why are we talking about him all these years on? Well, Robert Peel was probably one of the more consequential of 19th century British Prime Ministers. He had a long political career, he was in Parliament for 40 years, and he performed in some of the biggest offices of state.
So he was a really important home secretary during the 1820s, introduced major reforms, including the police force that we're used to today, and then in the 1840s his government was seen as crucial. because of the things that it did and introduced legislation to do with the economy, taxation and affecting Ireland. And so these are really big important issues and we're still living with some of the consequences of those changes today. Yeah, we'll get into some of those consequential issues and legislation throughout this conversation. But before we get into
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