Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet

Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (1788–1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister and twice as Home Secretary. The son of a wealthy Lancashire textile manufacturer, Peel earned a double first in classics and mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. As Home Secretary in 1829, he established the Metropolitan Police Force at Scotland Yard, pioneering policing by consent; officers were named 'Bobbies' and 'Peelers' in his honor.

In 1834, Peel issued the Tamworth Manifesto, laying the ideological foundation of the modern British Conservative Party. During his second premiership (1841–1846), confronted with the Great Famine in Ireland, Peel showed supreme moral courage by breaking with his own party landowners to repeal the protectionist Corn Laws in 1846, establishing free trade and cheap bread for the working class at the cost of his political career.