The Economic Achievement of Sir Robert Peel 1841–6*

AbstractNorman Gash (1912–2009), the leading authority on the ‘age of Peel’, died on 1 May 2009, having left instructions to his daughters that the bulk of his private correspondence and personal papers should be destroyed. A small exception was made in respect of material relating to Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), the subject of his most famous historical and biographical labours. A collection of papers and correspondence was bequeathed to the Peel Society at Tamworth, on strict condition that it should never be sold.1 Among the ‘Gash Bequest’ was a hitherto unpublished essay on ‘The Economic Achievement of Sir Robert Peel 1841–1846’. Typed in characteristic style on Gash's Remington typewriter, with only occasional manuscript insertions, the essay aptly summarises the position which he had developed in the final volume of his biography of Peel, the second volume of which was published 50 years ago this autumn.2 The essay is republished below as written, without any supporting notes or references. It acts not only as a commemoration of the half‐century since Gash's life of Peel was completed, but of the 40 years which have elapsed since he published an equally ground‐breaking article on the Conservative Party in the first volume of Parliamentary History.3