Sir Robert Peel - Leeds, UK - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

The Statue
This statue and ones of the Duke of Wellington and Queen Victoria once stood outside the town hall in Leeds city centre and were moved to this park when the square outside the town hall was redesigned in 1937.

An information board in front of the statue has the following information about the statue.

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S STATUE

Sir Robert Peel was a popular Prime Minister and his death in 1850 'caused the most intense and widespread grief throughout the kingdom'. A month after his death, a Leeds borough meeting, appointed a committee to raise a public subscription for a statue of Sir Robert Peel. Lists were posted in banks, factories, and the public newsroom, and a total of £1500 guineas was raised in subscriptions ranging from £100 to 1 penny. A competition for the commission was won by William Behnes. It was suggested by the Art Journal that the statue should be sculpted in antique style, with Sir Robert wearing a toga, but the town council wanted the statue in modern dress. The statue is eight feet six inches in height and stands on a pedestal of Scottish granite. It shows Sir Robert in a typical pose, addressing the House of Commons. The bronze figure was cast by F. Robinson of the Statue Foundry, Pimlico, London, and was the first large statue to be cast in one piece in Britain. The statue was erected in front of the Post Office in Park Row, and the inauguration ceremony took place at noon on the 20th August 1852 in front of a large crowd. In the 1890s the statue was moved to Victoria Square, in front of the Town Hall. It was moved again in 1937 to Woodhouse Moor.

The statue stands at the start of a diagonal path through the park. At the other end of this path is the statue of the Duke of wellington.

It became a Grade II listed building on 5th August 1976, and the listing teslls us that the pose is similar to that in a portrait by HW Pickersgill. link. The picture is on Sir Robert Peel's Wikipedia page and can be seen when the link below is used at the bottom of his personal details.

The Person
"Robert Peel (5 February 1788 - 2 July 1850) was the son of a successful local business man also called Robert who had become wealthy in the cotton trade specialising in the printing on calico material.

Although the younger Robert Peel also had cotton factories he is most famous for his achievements in politics.

He became a Member of Parliament in 1809 at the age of 21. He became the Chief Secretary of Ireland and in 1813 proposed the creation of a specialist police force which was inaugurated in 1814 as the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were colloquially called the ‘Peelers’ by the locals.

Later he became the U.K. government’s Home Secretary and in 1822 took the opportunity to again introduce a police force, this time in London. Again the police were colloquially named after him, this time being given the name ‘Bobbies’.

He held the position of Prime Minister of The United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 – 8 April 1835 and again from 30 August 1841 – 29 June 1846.

During his second term of office he campaigned for the repeal of the Corn Laws and this took place on the 25th June. The corn laws had originally been introduced in 1815, and were import duties imposed on the importation of cheap cereal crops.

They had been introduced as a protectionist measure to assist farmers who were suffering from cheap imports. Although the laws were popular with farmers and landholders, they caused suffering amongst the poor and factory workers , because it made food very expensive.

There had been so much opposition to the repeal of the laws that it undermined Peel’s position as Prime Minister and 4 days later he resigned as Prime Minister.

However to the working man, especially in industrial cities he became a hero. When he died suddenly in 1850 after falling from his horse a number of cities erected monuments to him. His popularity in Manchester can be measured by the fact that it was paid for by public subscription."

These details have been extracted from this web page.

URL of the statue: [Web Link]

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