Revs. Peel, Gooderham and Beresford, D.S.O. 235 



tuiTi of mind, loving books of science; he would be introduced 

 by Mr. Peel to another equally interested, so that they could 

 study and compare notes together. Again, he would find girls 

 and boys longing to taste life and be useful ; he would introduce 

 them to people who could help them. A girl wishing to learn 

 gardening and how to play tennis would be introduced to others 

 who knew how to do both. 



By these tactful and sociable ways his parishes were happy 

 and wholesome. He believed in clubs where people could meet 

 and exchange ideas, and many club-feasts he arranged in his 

 parishes. He realised that if you can make people work they 

 will be happy, and given congenial surroundings and congenial 

 employment, they are on the high road to being good. 



From Bedfordshire he went to St. Paul's vicarage, Becken- 

 ham, where he spent his brief but happy married life, and from 

 there to the front, where he was wounded badly in three places 

 while carrying the wounded at the Battle of Festubert, and was 

 sent home to recuperate. 



When sufficiently recovered he was appointed vicar of 

 Tamworth, dear from family associations, and where there 

 stands to-day a bronze statue of his grandfather, who repre- 

 sented Tamworth from 1833 to 1850, when he died from an 

 injury he received by a fall from his horse. The London police 

 received the nickname of " Peelers " owing to his having 

 reorganised the force while Home Secretary. He was a man 

 much respected, and of whom Wellington said, " I never knew a 

 man in whose truth and justice I had more lively confidence." 



At Tamworth Mr. Peel worked happily, and quickly gained 

 the affections of his parishioners, but during the early part of 

 1917, when the great offensive was imminent and he heard the 

 men in his old division were asking for him, he rejoined the 

 colours. 



At no time in his life was he what might be termed a robust 

 man, and his endurance at this time was remarkable. Directly 

 he returned to the front he found himself in the thick of the 

 fighting once more, and remained for thirty-six hours without a 

 moment's rest with the stretcher-bearers on the advanced 

 patrol, never for one second thinking of himself but only of 

 the men. Wherever a shell fell he ran to see who wanted help. 

 He received a bar to his Military Cross for his devoted services. 



