SIR ROBERT PEEL'S FATHER.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2630, 13 June 1877, Page 3

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S FATHER.

The Peel family "belong to the class of English yeomen. The grandfather of the statesman was Robert • Peel, who inherited a small estate called Peel's fold, in Lancashire. This ancestor married Elizabeth Haworth, the daughter of a gentleman of Lower Darwen, and maintained himself and his family, at first by farming. He began at Blackburn the business of a calico printer; and afterwards became a member of the firm of Haworth, Peel, and Yates. He is described- as a shy and reserved man, with a turn for mechanics. When in his garden one day, making some experiments in printing, his only daughter then a girl, brought him a sprig of parsley, saying she thought it would make a pretty pattern. He took it, looked at it, andlsaid he would try. The result was that the parsley pattern became a favorite with the trade,"and procured for the inventor the nickname of " Parsley Peel." Mr Peel took advantage of the introduction of the spinning - jenny, and became a cotton - spinner. His first cotton mill ,was at Brookside, a small •village near Blackburn, where he had first conducted his printing business. Afterwards removing- to Burton-upon-Trent, lie continued in a course of uninterrupted prosperity. His sons were instructed in his. trade, and resembled their father in character, being reserved, hardworking, plain, frugal, and unostentatious. The founder of the fortunes of Peels walked about in his later days as a stately old gentleman, with a gold-headed cane, and dressed in the clothes fashionable in the days of Dr Johnson, and never tired repeating his favorite maxim, 'f&.m&n can always- succeed if only he will put his will into the endeavour." The father of the late minister also Robert Peel, afterwards Sir Robert Peel, the first baronet, was the third son of "Parsley Peel," and this third son seems to have most deeply imbibed the sentiments of his sire as a worldly success. When eighteen years of age he said to his father that he thought they were " too thick upon the ground," and offered to go elsewhere if he would give him £500. Afterwards he joined his father's former partners, his maternal uncle, Mr Haworth, j and his future father-in-law, Mr Yates. He was then twenty-three. Mr Haworth in time left the firm, after which Mr Yates was senior, and young Robert Peel the junior partner. This second Robert Peel was a man of untiring energy, and for many years his life was devoted to incessant labor. At the age of thirty-six he married Ellen Yates, the young daughter of his partner. This lady, besides bringing to him her father's fortune, proved an excellent wife, affectionate, sweel-iempered, with a good understanding, and a sound judgment. Of this union there was born—after first one and then another daughter—on the sth February, 1788, a son—Robert Peel, the future . Prime Minister of England. It is stated on good authority that when tidings of his son's birth reached the father, that he fell on his lences returned fervant thanks to the Alnrghty, and vowed that he " would give his child to ' his country." Robert Peel the father

was an ardent admirer of Pitt, and he desired nothing less than that the son born to him should prove a second Pitt. Two years after his son's birth, in 1790, he entered the House of Commons as member for Tamworth, but not as a mere man of wealth, for he had long thought on political matters, and ten years previously had published a pmaphlet, entitled " The National Debt Productive of National Prosperity." A branch of his business established in the little borough town of Tamworth had raised it from a state of decline to a state of prosperity. He hnd acquired Drayton Park, no.nr Tamworth, among other large purchases of land in Staffordshire arsd Warwickshire. In Parliament he was a. zealous and enthusiastic supporter of Mr Pitt, i When in 1798 that Minister appealed to the country for pecuniary support in the. war against France, tlie firm of which Mr Peel was the leading partner responded by a subscription of £10,000. In 1800 a baronetcy was justly conferred upon the patriotic citizen ; and in 1802, when a vote of censure was moved against Mr Pitt, we find Sir Robert Peel making a stout defence on his behalf. So extensive had Sir Robert's business become at this time that he had in his employment no less than fifteen thousand persons, while to rho Excise Office he paid no less than £40.000 annually on printed goods alone.—Leisure Hour.