{{Short description|English composer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
'''[Gerald] Graham Peel''' (1877 – November 1937) was an English composer.
==Life==
Graham Peel's father was Gerald Peel, a millionaire Lancashire cotton spinner<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247478339 |title=Music Stage Radio |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |volume=II |issue=312 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=21 March 1938 |accessdate=10 February 2019 |page=11 (Daily Telegraph Home Magazine) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and magistrate of Pendlebury, near Manchester, England.
During his life, Peel was one of the first persons 'to take parties inside prisons to entertain the inmates', and of unobtrusive character, was later remembered for his generosity.<ref name=NewSun1938>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166680376 |title=Composer's fortune |newspaper=The Newcastle Sun |issue=6279 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=29 January 1938 |accessdate=10 February 2019 |page=7 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Clothes and jobs for prisoners were provided through Peel with his involvement in the Dorset and Bournemouth Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212008625 |title=His forte is helping crooks. |newspaper=King Island News |volume=24 |issue=1187 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=16 October 1935 |accessdate=10 February 2019 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>
He was a resident of 'Marden Ash', Bournemouth on his death, after a year's illness.<ref name=NewSun1937>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166686765 |title=Composer's death |newspaper=The Newcastle Sun |issue=6232 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=4 December 1937 |accessdate=10 February 2019 |page=9 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> A philanthropist, he died leaving £191,499.<ref name=NewSun1938 />
==Compositions==
Peel wrote more than 100 songs, many of them settings of A. E. Housman.<ref>Charles Osborne - The Concert Song Companion: A Guide to the Classical ...2012 - - Page 231 1475700490 "Graham Peel (1877—1937), composer of more than 100 songs, the best of them pleasantly tuneful, was especially drawn to A. E. Housman, as, understandably, were most composers of his generation. Peel's setting of “In summertime on ..."</ref> Many settings were for folk songs and pianoforte solos,<ref name=NewSun1937 /> and performed as far abroad as Australia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article189192928 |title=Entertainments |newspaper=The Telegraph |issue=17614 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=18 May 1929 |accessdate=10 February 2019 |page=3 (Second edition) |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> His tunes included: ::Almond, wild almond ::Go down to Kew in lilac time ::Her loveliness ::In summer time on Bredon (well regarded, and written c. 1908)<ref name=NewSun1938 /> ::Loveliest of trees ::Oh like a Queen ::Spring waters ::The early morning ::The lute-player ::The wild swan
The 1920 tune 'The challenge' was composed by Peel to the words of the poem of the same name by Scottish-Australian poet and bush balladeer Will H. Ogilvie (1869–1963).<ref>{{Citation | author1=Peel, Graham | author2=Ogilvie, Will H. (Will Henry), 1869-1963 | title=The challenge : song | date=1920 | publisher=Chappell & Co | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32555292 | accessdate=10 February 2019 }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peel, Graham}} Category:1877 births Category:1937 deaths Category:20th-century English composers Category:20th-century English male composers Category:English male songwriters Category:Musicians from Bournemouth Category:Prison music