Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet (25 April 1750 – 3 May 1830), was a British politician and industrialist and one of early textile manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution. He is one of ten known British millionaires in 1799. He was the father of Sir Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Background Peel's father Robert Peel and grandfather William Peel(e) were yeomen. They were also engaged in the adult and infant textile industry, then organised on the basis of the domestic system (most of the work being undertaken in the home). Business career Like many others, Peel joined partnerships to raise the capital required to set up spinning mills. These were water powered (usually using the water frame invented by Richard Arkwright), and thus by rivers and powerful streams in country districts. Thus Peel and Yates set up a mill and housing for their workers at Burrs near Bury. As elsewhere, the shortage of labour in the rural districts was mitigated by employing pauper children as 'apprentices', imported from any locality that wanted them off their hands. They were housed in a kind of hostel. Sir Robert Peel advocated for or sided with progressive reforms in legislation, worker's rights and the first near-national system of vital healthcare (poor law union workhouse trained and dedicated infirmaries) enduring through 19th century Britain and beyond. Through employing a growing workforce and investing in owning and co-managing a cotton processing/cloth manufacturing business and a calico-printing business, he became a millionaire, and lived, as one of his two main homes, at Chamber Hall in Bury, where his more famous son was born. Peel was listed as a subscriber to the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal navigation in 1791. He also built the first factory in nearby Radcliffe. Political career In politics, Peel was a 'Church and King' Tory and a staunch supporter of William Pitt the Younger. This was unusual, as many of the Lancashire mill owners were nonconformist and radical in their outlook. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for Tamworth, having bought the borough along with Lord Bath's estate in the area, and carried these principles into political life. He made Drayton Manor in Staffordshire his principal residence and started to adopt the lifestyle of a country gentleman. In 1800 he was created a Baronet, of Drayton Manor in the County of Stafford and of Bury in the County