Sir Robert Peel | 1788-1850 Acknowledged as the founder of Britain's Conservative Party, Peel achieved several reform bills in Parliament, including the reorganization of the criminal code which culminated in the Metropolitan Police Act; the Catholic Emancipation Act; and, as Prime Minister (1834-5, 1841-6), the repeal of the Corn Laws and a dedication to the support of free trade. Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his feet mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure. Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult. He entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile girl before him. She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and "put out," and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne."... Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete change in Victoria's attitude towards him. His appreciation of the Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his nature, which, in private intercourse with those whom he wished to please, had the power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his manners, did the rest. She came in time to regard him with intense feelings of respect and attachment. She spoke of "our worthy Peel," for whom, she said, she had "an extreme admiration" and who had shown himself "a man of unbounded loyalty, courage, patriotism, and high-mindedness, and his conduct towards me has been chivalrous almost, I might say." She dreaded his removal from office almost as frantically as she had once dreaded that of Lord M. -Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria