Notice the motto ("Industria"), the bee, the sheaves of arrows (meaning?) and the shuttle in the paws of the demi-lion in the crest. Foster summarises: "Robert Peel of Oswaldwistle...also of Burton on Trent in 1773, and lastly of Ardwick, Manchester, became the founder of the Lancashire cotton trade, [and] acquired great wealth..."]
"Sir Robert Peel, first baronet [father of the Prime Minister Robert Peel]...was twice married: first to Elizabeth, born 1766, daughter of William Yates, of Bury, his partner in business; second, to Susannah, daughter of Francis Clerke, Esq., younger brother of Sir William Clerke, of Hitcham, Buckinghamshire. By the last he had no issue. By the first he had:
1. The late Sir Robert Peel, M.P. [and P.M.], second baronet.
2. William Yates Peel, born at Chamber Hall, Bury, August 3, 1789. He owns an extensive property in various cotton-factories and warehouses in Lancashire, all of which are leased to manufacturers. He married, in 1819, Jane Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Mountcashel, and by her has had sixteen children, most of whom are alive, and some married.
3. Edmond [sic?] Yates Peel [EYP's father], born at Chamber Hall, Bury, August 8, 1791. He married in 1812, Jane, daughter of John Swinfen, Esq., of Swinfen, Staffordshire, and has issue three sons.
This gentleman resides at Bonehill, near to Fazeley and Tamworth, and holds in his own occupation extensive bleach-works and spinning mills. He is also distinguished for his agricultural experiments and his successful breeding of race-horses.
4. John Peel, LL.B., Dean of Worcester, born at Chamber Hall, August 22, 1798. He married in 1824, Augusta, fifth daughter of John Swinfen Esq., of Swinfen. After an absence of forty years from Bury, he was present at the inauguration of Sir Robert Peel's statue, 8th September, 1852. His address on the occasion was alike eloquent and affecting.
5. Jonathan, a major-general in the army, but not recently employed. He is the 'Colonel Peel' so well known for many years on the turf as a successful horse-racer, in connection with the late Lord George Bentinck. He was born at Chamber Hall, October 12, 1799. He married, in 1824, Alicia Jane Kennedy, youngest daughter of Archibald, marquis of Ailsa. Their issue are five sons and one daughter; several of the sons, as also their cousins, sons of William and Edmund, are in the army, and some in the church.
6. Sir Lawrence Peel, born at Chamber Hall (date uncertain), made a knight in 1842; married, in 1822, Jane, sister of the Duke of Richmond.
7. Mary Peel, born at Chamber Hall; married, in 1816, to the Right Hon. George Dawson, of Castle Dawson, county of Derry, Ireland.
8. Elizabeth Peel, born at Chamber Hall, died in 1828; was married, in 1805, to the Very Reverend William Cockburn, dean of York.
9. Harriet Eleonora Peel, born at Chamber Hall, was married, in 1824, to the late Lord Henley, a Master in Chancery, and had a family.
[Source: See e.g. the Peel Society info. here.]
The Peel family is numerous, complex, and very interesting.
There is a fairly detailed account of the rise and rise of EYP's great-grandfather (often called "Parsley Peel", after a leaf pattern that became his trademark) online at Wikipedia: Robert Peel (1723 - 1795).
This draws attention to his background in wool and calico printing and to innovations he introduced into cotton printing. By the time of his death in 1795, Peel's family-run company, Peel & Co., was the largest in the cotton industry with twenty-three mills around the north west of England, fourteen more than their closest competitor.
Also Joseph Foster's The Baronetage and Knightage, here.
The significance of the union of the two families, Peel and Yates, is signalled by the number of appearances of the middle name "Yates" among Peels far and wide. I wonder if there are many Peels among those with the surname Yates? There are certainly some, but I haven't looked properly yet. The name "Yates" doesn't make it into Foster's book, though it may appear in e.g. Burke?]
A eulogising (but slightly obscure) summary of the Peel family's history was published in 1852. The first part describes a mid-18th century Robert Peel developing water-powered spinning machinery at the same time as the better-known Arkwright, Crompton, Wyatt and Hargreaves), whose [machinery they also installed in their own factories at ? ... deeply troubled by machine breaking ...
Summarise or otherwise make some sense of the following. Presumably "Brookside" and "Altham" were Peel family-owned?
"Mr. Peel and his sons erected the first of Hargreaves' spinning-jennies [where?], which was set in motion by water power, they being previously moved by hand.
It was now, 1766, that the murmurs of the spinning-women ripened to acts of violence. At first the men were pleased with the jenny, which gave eight threads of weft instead of one; but, when it threatened to supersede hand-spinning altogether, they joined with the women in resisting its use. They marched out of Blackburn in mobs, and broke all the jennies, reduced the works at Brookside to absolute wreck, and levelled the house of James Hargreaves at Stanehill Moor into the ground. Hargreaves, his wife and child, fled for their lives, first to Manchester, and then to Nottingham...
When the buildings and machinery were demolished at Brookside, the mob proceeded to Altham, six miles distant, and destroyed the works which William Peel, the eldest son, had erected there. Everywhere the Peels were hunted for the next twelve months. At last the father turned his back on Lancashire, and took up his abode at Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, where he established both spinning and printing...
Meanwhile Robert, the third son, was diligently fulfilling an apprenticeship with the Bamber Bridge printers already named. When at liberty to enter upon business for himself, he selected a green, sunny spot, with abundance of water, close to the town of Bury, in Lancashire. His brothers did the same, at the hamlet of Church, near to which has since risen the thriving and populous town of Accrington.
The wonderful success of the whole family of the Peels as merchants, manufacturers, and calico printers, is a part of the industrial history of Britain. Nothing more can be done here than to name it. Robert, from the magnitude of his works at Bury, and from his political tendencies, became the best known. He married the daughter of Mr. Yates, one of his partners in business, and by her had a large family.
[Source: See the Peel Society info. here.
The article in Wikipedia: Robert Peel (1723 - 1795) may the best introduction.]
He extended his works to other places than Bury. Near Tamworth, in Staffordshire, he acquired property (where there was an abundance of water), and built the town of Fazeley, besides giving employment to the population of Tamworth. In 1790 he became member of parliament for the latter place. In 1797, when the government was distressed for money, he subscribed £10,000 to the voluntary contribution. Next year, when invasion was first seriously feared, he raised six companies of volunteers, chiefly among his own workpeople at Bury, and became their lieutenant-colonel. He published several political pamphlets. " etc etc ]
The following, about PM Robert Peel, EYP's uncle, and his family is probably not relevant, but leave in for the moment.]
Sir Robert Peel, the eminent statesman, born February 5, 1788 (near Chamber Hall, in a cottage, the hall being then under repair), and died July 2, 1850, married, June 8, 1820, Julia, daughter of General Sir John Floyd, Bart. She has had issue:
1. Sir Robert Peel, M.P. for Tamworth, late Charge d'Affaires in Switzerland; born May 4, 1822.
2. Frederick Peel, M.P. for Bury, previously M.P. for Leominster, and under-secretary for state for the colonies in the ministry of Lord John Russell; born October 26, 1823.
3. William Peel, born November 2, 1824, an officer in the royal navy.
4. John Floyd Peel, born May 24, 1827.
5. Arthur Wellesly [Wellesley?] Peel, born August 3, 1829.
6. Julia, married in 1841 to Lord Villiers, eldest son of the Earl of Jersey, by whom she has several children.
7. Elizabeth.
[Source: See e.g. the Peel Society info. here.]
The detailed article on "Ion" in Thoroughbred Heritage, here, marvellously interlocks human and equine genealogies. (As the author says, it is "not unlike a Jane Austen novel".) The significance of horses for the Peels - breeding and racing (rather than hunting?) them and joining cavalry regiments - is of course profound. ]
[No source given.]
Ion was the third in a line of stallions retained by the Yates and Peel families. His grandsire, Paulowitz (1813, by Sir Paul), had been bred by Lord Fitzwilliam. Paulowitz was the last foal in a series of good youngsters produced by Evelina (1791, by Highflyer), a four-mile runner whose other offspring included the good race horse Cervantes (1805, by Sir Peter Teazle) and Orville (1799, by Beningbrough) one of the great four-milers of his era and twice leading sire in England. Paulowitz debuted in the Earl's colors and ran for him through his three-year-old season, after which he was purchased by Edmund Yates, a racing and hunting enthusiast.
The Yates — Peel connection began in Bury, Lancashire, in the 1770s when Robert Peel and William Yates and Yates' son, Edmund, and later another son, Thomas Yates, and several others formed a partnership focused on cotton printing, expanded a few years later to encompass cotton mills at both Bury and Fazeley in Staffordshire — and for several decades a calico printing works at Bonehill, Staffordshire, operated separately by Robert Peel — founding an extremely successful venture that eventually provided an immense fortune for the scions of these two families. Peel married William Yates's eldest daughter, Ellen, further cementing the intertwined lives of the two families, and members of later generations intermarried, not unlike characters in a Jane Austen novel.
Several members of the Yates family were involved in racing and hunting, most notably William Yates' son, Edmund (1797-1835) and his brother [Captain, then Colonel-General] Jonathan, who served with the 49th Foot in Canada during the War of 1812. Jonathan Yates was the owner of Swap (1819, by Catton) when he was at stud.
Robert Peel (1750-1830), with the establishment of the Staffordshire properties, became one of the country's leading industrialists, served as an M.P., and was made a baronet. His and Ellen's children included Robert Peel (1788-1850), 2nd Bart., an M.P., Lord Treasurer, cabinet minister, and later Prime Minister, whose seat was at Drayton Basset Park near Fazeley, and [Colonel, later General] Jonathan Peel (1799-1879), who purchased commissions in the 71st Highlanders, the Rifle Brigade and the Guards, never seeing active service, and gradually advancing in rank to Major-General in 1854. In politics, Jonathan Peel served as Surveyor-General of Ordnance, and later in life a stint as Secretary of State for War. Colonel Peel was an avid turfite for most of his adult life. Another son, Edmund Yates Peel (b. 1791) had a house at Bonehill, near Tamworth, and also raced horses.