Norman Gash

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Norman Gash (born 1912) is a renowned historian, famous for his biography/analysis of Sir Robert Peel.

He is a former Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and is an acclaimed historian of the 19th century.

[edit] Works

• Reaction and Reconstruction in English Politics 1832-52 (1965)
• Age of Peel (1968)
• Mr Secretary Peel
• Sir Robert Peel
• Gash: Aristocracy People: Britain 1815-65 (1980)
• Lord Liverpool - the Life & Political Career of Robert Banks Jenkinson 2nd Earl Liverpool (1985)
• Politics in the Age of Peel (1971)
• Robert Surtees and Early Victorian Society
• Wellington: Studies in the Political and Military Career of the First Duke of Wellington (1990)
• Wellington Anecdotes (1992)
• Pillars of Government and Other Essays on State and Society, 1770-1880 (1986)

[edit] Biography of Robert Peel

Gash's biography of Robert Peel is in two volumes; the first of which was entitled "Mr Secretary Peel" and followed his life up until 1830. The second, "Sir Robert Peel", included the majority of his political career such as his famous and successful period at the Home Office and, more importantly his tenure as Prime Minister from 1841-6, a period in which, Gash argues, Peel's reforms were paramount in ending the "hungry forties" and bringing about Victorian prosperity.

These two volumes remain the definitive biographies written about Peel and although many of Gash's interpretations of Peel have been challenged in recent decades by historians such as Boyd Hilton, his work remains influential and respected within the historical community.