Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Baronet, GCB, PC (4 May 1822 – 9 May 1895) was a British Peelite, Liberal and from 1884 until 1886 Conservative Member of Parliament (MP). Eldest son of the prime minister Robert Peel, he was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford and entered the Diplomatic Service in 1844. He served as co-member for Tamworth, his father's constituency, from 1850 until 1880, for Huntingdon from 1884 and for Blackburn from 1885 to 1886. He was appointed Irish secretary in 1861 in Palmerston's ministry, but in 1865, under Russell he was replaced by Chichester Fortescue. He was appointed a GCB in 1866. His variety of parties and tendency not to toe the party line saw republication of a charge of moral want, volatility and 'lack of dignity' from pre-Liberal landslide biographies after his death such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which mention signs of general profligacy and of his rift from his wife. Background and education Born in London on 4 May 1822, Peel was the eldest son of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, the statesman, and Julia, daughter of Sir John Floyd, 1st Baronet. He went to Harrow School in February 1835. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford on 26 May 1841, but did not take a degree. Diplomatic career Entering the diplomatic service, he became an attaché to the British legation at Madrid on 18 June 1844. He was promoted to be secretary of legation in Switzerland on 2 May 1846, and was chargé d'affaires there in November 1846. On his father's death, on 2 July 1850, and his own succession to the baronetcy, he resigned his office at Bern. Political career Entering the House of Commons as the 'Liberal-Conservative' (i.e. as one of the Peelites) member for his father's former constituency, Tamworth, on 19 July 1850, he had every opportunity open to him of taking a distinguished place in public life. He had a fine presence and gaiety of manner, and was popular in social life; while his oratorical gifts – a rich ringing voice, a perfect command of language, rare powers of irony, a capacity for producing unexpected rhetorical effects – ought to have rendered his success in parliament a certainty. But he used his abilities fitfully. The want of moral fibre in his volatile character, an absence of dignity, and an inability to accept a fixed political creed, prevented him