Royal Academy from 1843 to 1888 and at the Royal Society of British Artists from 1845 onwards. His pictures made their mark by their sincere feeling for nature and their excellent drawing, especially of trees. Three of his pictures, 'A Lane in Berwickshire,' 'Cotherstone, Yorkshire,' and 'Pont-y-pant, Wales,' are in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, where a loan exhibition of his works was held in 1907. Several were bought for other provincial galleries at Glasgow, Leeds, and Sunderland, and for clients in Newcastle. He resided at Darlington from 1848 to 1857, when he again settled in London.
In 1861 he was admitted a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, of which he became a leading supporter. In association with Madox Brown, William Bell Scott [q. v.], and other artists he was an active organiser of 'free' exhibitions like those of the Dudley Gallery and of the Portland Gallery, of which the latter ended disastrously. Working to the end with all the vigour of earlier years, he died at his residence, Elms Lodge, Oxford Road, Reading, on 28 Jan. 1906. Peel married at Darlington, on 30 May 1849, Sarah Martha, eldest daughter of Thomas Blyth, and left issue.
[The Times, 5 Feb. 1906; Newcastle Weekly Chron., 20 March 1897 (with photographic reproduction); Illustr. Cat. of Exhib. of Works by James Peel, Laing Art Gall., Newcastle, March 1907 (with portrait); private information.]
PEILE, Sir JAMES BRAITHWAITE (1833–1906), Indian administrator, born at Liverpool on 27 April 1833, was second son in a family of ten children of Thomas Williamson Peile [q. v.], by his wife Mary, daughter of James Braithwaite. Colonel John Peile, R.A., was a brother. In 1852 James proceeded from Repton School, of which his father was headmaster, with a scholarship to Oriel College, Oxford.
At Michaelmas term 1853 he won a first class in classical moderations and two years later a first class in the final classical school. Meanwhile in 1855 the civil service of India was thrown open to public competition, and Peile obtained one of the first twenty appointments, being placed tenth.
He travelled out to India to join the Bombay service in September 1856 by the paddle steamer Pekin, having as a fellow traveller William Brydon [q. v.], sole survivor of the Kabul retreat in 1842. Peile was at once nominated to district work. From the Thana district he was sent to Surat, and thence to Ahmedabad on 15 April 1857, where the belated news of the Meerut outbreak reached that station on 21 May 1857. Peile thus experienced some of the stern realities of the Mutiny, and he described them graphically in private letters to a friend who published them in 'The Times' on 3 Dec. 1857. In 1858 Peile was actively engaged in extending primary education and learning an inspector's duties under Sir Theodore Hope. On 4 May 1859 he was entrusted with the special inquiry into the claims made against the British government by the ruler of Bhavnagar, a native state in Kathiawar. His successful settlement of this difficulty brought him to the front and he was made under-secretary of the Bombay government.
Peile's observations in Bhavnagar had deeply impressed him with the impoverished condition of Girassias and Talukdars, depressed landowners descended from ruling chiefs, who were rapidly losing their proprietary rights. For the next five years (1861-6) he was chiefly absorbed in endeavours to remedy this state of affairs. He devised and carried out in Gujarat a scheme of summary settlement for the holders of 'alienated' estates (i.e. lands granted on favourable terms by government). There followed the enactment of Bombay Act, vi., 1862, for the rehef of the Talukdars of Western Ahmedabad. Peile resigned the post of under-secretary to government in order that he might ensure the success of legislation inspired by himself. Many estates were measured and valued by him, complicated boundary disputes settled, and the rents due to government were fixed for a term of years. His reputation for overcoming difficulties was so established that, on the occurrence of a dispute in the Rajput state of Dharanpur which threatened civil disturbance, he was sent to compose it. His arrangements were satisfactory, and his thoroughness and efficiency greatly impressed Sir Bartle Frere. In April 1866 he was selected as commissioner for revising subordinate civil establishments throughout Bombay, and then, when a wave of speculation passed over the province, he became registrar-general of assurances, and took an active part in compelling companies to furnish accounts. Having thus established his claims to promotion, he took furlough to England from September 1867 to April 1869.
On his return to duty he became director of public instruction in succession to Sir Alexander Grant [q. v.], and held the post till 1873. He laid truly the foundations of primary education, in which Bombay has
