Robert Peel In 1830 the Whigs finally returned to power and Peel became a member of the Opposition for the first time. After successive election defeats, leadership of the Conservative Party gradually passed from Wellington to Peel, and when King William IV asked Wellington to become Prime Minister in November 1834, he declined and Peel was selected instead, with Wellington serving as caretaker until Peel took office. Peel then issued the Tamworth Manifesto (December 1834), laying down the principles upon which the modern British Conservative Party is based. His first ministry was a minority government, dependent on Whig support and with Peel
Prime Minister of Canada funerals, Bennett also being the only former Prime Minister of Canada to die and be buried outside the country and Bowell the only whose funeral was not attended by politicians. John Thompson also died outside Canada, at Windsor Castle, where Queen Victoria permitted his lying-in-state before his body was returned to Canada for a state funeral in Halifax. In earlier years, it was traditional for the monarch to bestow a knighthood on newly appointed Canadian prime ministers. Accordingly, several carried the prefix "Sir" before their name; of the first eight premiers of Canada, only Alexander Mackenzie refused the honour of