Sidney Cornwallis Peel

Colonel Sir Sidney Cornwallis Peel, 1st Baronet, (1870–1938), was a British Army officer, barrister and financier. He was also for the coalition government term 1918–1922, a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP). For the 19 years until death he was a celebrated chairman of the Export Credits Guarantee Department Advisory Committee.

Background and marriage

Peel was born on 3 June 1870, the third son of Arthur Peel, 1st Viscount Peel, Speaker of the House of Commons, the youngest son of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. His mother was Adelaide, daughter of William Stratford Dugdale. Schooled at Eton College he was there a King's Scholar and Newcastle Scholar in 1889, winning a scholarship at New College, Oxford, where he won first-class honours in Greats and was elected a Fellow of Trinity in 1893. Shortly after he became Secretary to the Licensing Committee (chaired by his father).

Peel married Lady Adelaide Margaret Delia, daughter of Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer, in 1914.

Career

In 1898 he was called to the bar. In 1900, he served in the Boer War as a trooper in the 40th (Oxfordshire) Company, 10th battalion, Imperial Yeomanry, for which bestowed the Queen's South Africa Medal with three clasps. In February 1902 he was commissioned into the Bedfordshire Yeomanry as a Captain.

He reported on Egypt for a newspaper and befriended Ernest Cassel. This led to chairmanship of the London Committee of the National Bank of Egypt and vice-presidency of the Morocco State Bank. In 1901, he was an official in the National Discount Company, then director in 1911 and chairman in 1922.