“A great reforming Home Secretary”: Discuss this judgement on Peel:
INTRO:
Sir Robert Peel was Home Secretary between the years of 1822 and 1827, under Lord Liverpool’s premiership, and then served in the cabinet of the Duke of Wellington from 26th January 1828, until November 1830. There is no doubt that Robert Peel’s performance as Home Secretary was remarkable in many ways, although the nature of his role and his successfulness has been questioned and analysed by historians and politicians alike, even Canning, who did not agree with Peel on many issues at the time described him as “the most efficient home secretary that this country ever saw”. An judgement of Peel’s performance as Home Secretary can be accurately reached when his performance in three main policy areas is analysed: these are, his amendments to criminal law, the law and order system, and his performance during the Catholic Emancipation crisis. To reform, one must make changes to something in order to improve it, and in this sense Peel has to be mostly credited. In law and order is where Peel seemed to make his most significant improvements, this can also be said for amendments to the existing, illogical, criminal laws in Britain, many of which he saw as unnecessary and so changed them. It was in the midst of the Catholic Emancipation crisis, however, where Peel was forced to defy his principles and lost a number of allies in the process, all to a largely politically detrimental effect.
PARAGRAPH 1: Criminal Law:
Robert Peel intended to reform the legal system and a number of the existing laws in the hope of simplifying it and reducing lives lost to the death penalty. To say the very least, Peel’s reforms in this field were extensive and wide-ranging, although it seems as though Peel can be criticised on the grounds that in many instances he did not reach the goals he intended to. Peel was notably intuitive and determined throughout his run as Home Secretary and despite the intricate complexity of the multi-faceted system of law and prisons, he felt that laws needed to be streamlined to fit the current newly-industrialised society’s political and social situation. Peel felt that a number of the existing crimes for which the death penalty was, then enforced were not hugely serious and so he made this his first goal: to reduce the amount of offences carrying the death penalty. In this field, Peel can be seen as largely successful, in that he managed to significantly reduce the number of offences carrying the death penalty. Prior to Peel, over a thousand men and women were being sentenced to death each year

With over a thousand men and women a year being sentenced to death, although only a small proportion being actually executed, there was growing activism in the early part of the nineteenth century to reduce the number of crimes for which people could suffer the ultimate punishment.
Sir Samuel Romilly, (1757-1818), attempted to get Parliament to de-capitalise many minor crimes. On the 17th of January 1813, he introduced a Bill in the House of Commons "to repeal so much of the Act of King William as punishes with death the offence of stealing privately in a shop, warehouse or stable, goods of the value of 5shillings". This Bill was thrown out by the House of Lords. * His reforms in this field were extensive and wide ranging. * Reduced the number of offences that carried the death penalty, but there was no fall in the number of executions * In 1825 he consolidated eighty-five laws relating to juries into a single act. * He planned to consolidate the laws relating to theft: out of 14,437 persons in England and Wales charged with various crimes in the course of the previous year, 12,500 had been accused of theft. Specific acts had been made into crimes instead of specific acts so he intended to bring them together in one 30 page document. He was unsuccessful here but still managed to emerge as only 4 separate acts. * Let his policies act as the middle way. * In 1828 he dealt with the law of offences against the person, reducing it from 57 acts to one, and in 1830 he turned the 27 acts relating to forgeries punishable with death into a single statute.
PARAGRAPH 2: Law and Order: * In 1822 a committee had refused to recommend any reform in relation to the police. In 1828 Peel secured a new inquiry into the police of the metropolis, and the following year he was able to legislate. * Peel resolved to create a unified body under the control of the home secretary and paid for out of a general rate: this came into being on 29th September 1829. * Peel’s “vigorous preventative police” carried truncheons but not firearms, armed with only military discipline. * Despite many attacks on policemen at first, a force of just 3,000 men won control of the streets * Was a huge step up from the chaotically organised parish constables and night watchmen * Reassuring step down from the use of soldiers and the risk of bloodshed. * Fears of a “secret police force” were proven to be exaggerated and hostility towards this policy ebbed away gradually. By the mid-century the policeman’s image was becoming a friendly, neighbourly one, and constables gained nicknames e.g. “bobbies”.

PARAGRAPH 3: Catholic Emancipation: * Lost respect for many and was suggested to have weak principles as he changed his views, although it was respected on the grounds that he did what seemed best for the country. * Support for the Anglican Church was the life-blood of Toryism. The Tories believed that there could be no yielding over the central rights of the Established Church. This therefore implied opposition to Catholic Emancipation on principle because it would destroy the constitutional supremacy of the Anglican Church. * The increasing strength of public opinion, as expressed in the newspapers and elections over a twenty-year period overcame religious bias and deference to the crown, first in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords. * Every member of parliament elected after 1807, with one exception, announced his support for Emancipation. * In August 1828 after the County Clare election, Peel accepted the necessity for, but not the desirability of Catholic Emancipation. He tendered his resignation but Wellington persuaded him that the legislation would never pass without Peel's support. By January 1829 Peel's high-principled stand was weakening. He told Wellington that he would continue in office 'if my retirement should prove ... 'an insuperable obstacle' to the passing of Catholic Emancipation. * Peel agreed to put Catholic Emancipation to the Commons. Only Peel and the Lord Chancellor were fully in Wellington's confidence over Catholic Emancipation. Peel put duty before principle and in February 1829 proposed the Bill to an astounded House of Commons. After all, for the past twenty years, Peel had been the one man who had consistently opposed the measure. * The Catholic Emancipation Act, which became law in April 1829, finally fragmented the Tories into the Ultras, liberal Tories and Wellingtonians, but was the result of Tory weakness which had existed under Liverpool, and led to further weaknesses and concessions. It broke up the old Tory party, and was therefore (perhaps) more significant than the Reform Act for the Conservatives. Catholic Emancipation was the first step on the road to reform
CONCLUSION:
* Successful in reforming law and order, and in his progress in amending criminal law, although this was more consilodatory than “reforming”. * He was unsuccessful in his aims in relation to Catholic Emancipation and reluctant to reform an area based on tradition rather than reason, a clear demonstration of a non-reformer.