Julia, Lady Peel (; 19 September 1795 – 27/28 October 1859) was the wife of the British politician and Prime Minister Robert Peel. She was considered "remarkable for personal beauty" and was captured in the 1827 portrait Portrait of Julia, Lady Peel.[1]
Julia was born in 1795 in Trichinopoly, Tamil Nadu, British India,[2] the third child of army officer Sir John Floyd, 1st Baronet and his wife, Rebecca Juliana, daughter of merchant Charles Darke. Her father was the Murat of the Third Anglo-Mysore War "and the most dashing cavalry officer of his day." She had an elder sister Miranda, who married Lt.-Gen. Sir Joseph Fuller, and an elder brother, Maj.-Gen. Sir Henry Floyd, 2nd Bt. She had a younger sister, Flavia, born in 1797. Flavia died in 1802, and their mother died of the same illness two days later.[3] Julia then returned to England.[4]
She became engaged to Peel, recently the Chief Secretary of Ireland, in March 1820 and the couple married on 8 June that year.[5]
Peel went on to serve twice as Prime Minister from 1834 to 1834 and again from 1841 to 1846 and she functioned as his hostess as Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Her husband also spent a number years as Leader of the Opposition along with his ally the Duke of Wellington. He died in 1850 in a horseriding accident.[1]
Lady Peel died suddenly during the night of 27/28 October 1859, at her townhouse in Privy Garden, Whitehall. She had spent the evening with Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey; Lady Jersey had been mourning the deaths of both her husband George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey on 3 October, and their eldest son, George Child Villiers, 6th Earl of Jersey, on 24 October. The 6th Earl of Jersey was Lady Peel's son-in-law, married to her eldest daughter, Julia. Lady Peel had been suffering severe anxiety and was still in mourning over the death of her son Sir William Peel the previous year from smallpox, as well as the death of her husband. The cause of death was believed to be heart attack caused by stress.[1]
The Peels had seven children:[6]
Her 1827 portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, then President of the Royal Academy, is now in the Frick Collection in New York City.[7]