3-082-599 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Right Hon. A. W. Peel, Speaker from 1884 to April 1895, (1895). 'The Speakers of the Century. Since the beginning of the century there have been seven Speakers of the House of Commons, five of whom have occupied this exalted office during the Queen's reign...Mr. Arthur Wellesley Peel was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, in 1884, to fill the office of Speaker. Although he had been during his career Parliamentary Secretary successively to the Poor Law Board, the Board of Trade, and Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, as well as, for a brief space, Under-Secretary to the Home Department, Mr. Peel was virtually "an unknown quantity" when he was elected Speaker. But year after year has proved the perspicacity of Mr. Gladstone and the high gifts of Mr. Peel, who has ruled with an iron hand in a velvet glove'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.