Charles Urie Peat (28 February 1892 – 27 October 1979) was a British

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politician and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. He was the son of

William Barclay Peat Sir William Barclay Peat (15 February 1852 – 24 January 1936) was an accountant and one of the founders of KPMG. Career Peat born in Forebank, St Cyrus, Kincardine, Scotland. He was the second son of James Peat and Margaret Barclay (of t ...

, founder of the international accounting firm

KPMG KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations. Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a net ...

. Peat was born in

Edmonton, Middlesex Edmonton is a town in North London, north London, England within the London Borough of Enfield, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London. The northern part of the town is known as Lower Edmonton or Edmonton Green, and ...

, and educated at

Sedbergh School Sedbergh School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in the town of Sedbergh in Cumbria, in North West England. It comprises a junior school for children aged 4 to 13 and the main school for 13 to 18 year olds. I ...

and

Trinity College, Oxford (That which you wish to be secret, tell to nobody) , named_for = The Holy Trinity , established = , sister_college = Churchill College, Cambridge , president = Dame Hilary Boulding , location = Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BH , coordinates ...

. He played

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

for

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1913,

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

in 1914 and the

Free Foresters Free Foresters Cricket Club is an English amateur cricket club, established in 1856 for players from the Midland counties of England. It is a 'wandering' (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. The Free Foresters were founded by the Rev. Will ...

between 1920 and 1922, as well as in several matches for HDG Leveson-Gower's XI. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Peat was commissioned in the

City of London Yeomanry The City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) was a yeomanry regiment of the British Territorial Army, formed in 1901 from veterans of the Second Boer War. In World War I it served dismounted in the Gallipoli Campaign but reverted to the mount ...

and was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

. At the 1931 general election, he was elected as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for Darlington, defeating the sitting

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Arthur Lewis Shepherd Arthur Lewis Shepherd (7 February 1884 – 14 April 1951) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington at a by-election in 1926, having unsuccessfully contested the seat at ...

. During his time as MP for Darlington, he lived at nearby Wycliffe Hall. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served as Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

. In 1943, he led a campaign to salvage 100 million books for the nation's war effort. Peat was an accountant by profession, and from March to June 1945, he served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Insurance. In the Labour landslide at the 1945 general election, he was defeated by Labour's David Hardman. He died at

Barnard Castle Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automato ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

on 27 October 1979. His grandson, Benjamin Usher, played

List A cricket List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numb ...

for

British Universities Universities in the United Kingdom have generally been instituted by royal charter, papal bull, Act of Parliament, or an instrument of government under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 or the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. D ...

and the

Durham Cricket Board The Durham Cricket Board is the governing body for all recreational cricket in the historic county of Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county ...

as well as

Minor counties The National Counties, known as the Minor Counties before 2020, are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that do not have first-class status. The game is administered by the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), which comes unde ...

cricket for

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

References

External links

*
Charles Peat
at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

Charles Peat
at CricketArchive
PEAT, Charles Urie
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2016 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014) 1892 births 1979 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford British Army personnel of World War I British sportsperson-politicians City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) officers Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies English accountants English cricketers English people of Scottish descent Free Foresters cricketers H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers Middlesex cricketers Ministers in the Churchill caretaker government, 1945 Ministers in the Churchill wartime government, 1940–1945 Oxford University cricketers People educated at Sedbergh School People from Barnard Castle Cricketers from Yorkshire UK MPs 1931–1935 UK MPs 1935–1945 20th-century English businesspeople {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1890s-stub