ABSTRACT
Like almost all successful politicians born in the eighteenth century, Robert Peel came from a wealthy background. Unlike most, however, the Peel family wealth was neither landed in origin nor of long duration. Sir Robert Peel’s grandfather had been a small independent farmer in Lancashire. His father, also named Robert, made the family fortune in the infant cotton industry during the early years of the industrial revolution. Peel was, therefore, the first prime minister to come from an industrial background. He was born in Bury in 1788, the first son of the family and, despite expensive education and a lifetime in the company of the great and privileged, never entirely lost his Lancashire accent.
