On the outskirts of sooty Birmingham is ivy-clad Drayton Manor, whereon a halo of fame has grown for more than a century. Drayton Manor, as all good Britishers know, was the home of Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), than whom there was no more revered statesman in the 19th Century. His ancestors, sprung from Yorkshire yeoman stock, potent in a rising industrial era, Tory to the core, saw in him the future leader of the Tories. A scholar and a football player, he entered Parliament. A smart young man, he established the Irish constabulary and...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In