Author: Peel, Edmund
Biography:
PEEL, Edmund (1797-1877: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 16 Dec. 1797 at Wandsworth, Surrey (now South London), the fourth son of Joseph Peel (1766-1821) of Bowes Farm, Middlesex, and his wife Ann(ie) Haworth (1767-1811), who had married in Manchester in 1790. Robert Peel MP, British Prime Minister (1841-46), was his cousin. His brother Sir Laurence Peel (1799-1884) was a distinguished lawyer. He joined the army and served as Lieutenant in the 85th, 49th, and 25th Light Infantry regiments, but his career was cut short by ill health and he was invalided out on half-pay. He married Maria Browne (1794-1870) on 14 Dec. 1820 at Westport House, Co. Mayo, Ireland. They had seven children. His work listed here was well received but he was better known for his later poetry: The Fair Island (1851), Poetical Works (1856), and a final volume, Echoes of Horeb (1877). He was well known in London literary circles and was on good terms with Tennyson, Dickens, and many others. Leigh Hunt was an admirer of his sonnets--admittedly an overworked genre, but they are worth another look. Judas Maccabeus. An Heroic Poem in Twelve Books (1864) is probably now an acquired taste. He died on 10 Sept. 1877 at Alexandra Terrace, Newport, Isle of Wight, and was buried at Carisbrooke cemetery, leaving a modest estate of £800. (ancestry.co.uk 16 Dec. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Dec. 2022; SJC 26 Dec. 1820; OUCH 22 Dec. 1821; Hampshire Advertiser 27 Aug. 1870, 12 Sept. 1877; Hampshire Independent 19 Sept. 1877) AA