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Picture source: Barry Lount

The Sir Robert Peel was situated on Manvers Street. This pub closed in the 1990s.

Source: Brian Johnson

My grandfather Albert Pettit was licensee of the Robert Peel in the 1920s. He came from Mexborough, and his family's boot and shoe business is still there and thriving. He died in 1930 when my mother was aged 7. His widow, Emily Pettit, took over the licence and stayed as landlady until the 1950s. Her maiden name was May, and I think the May family kept pubs all over Nottingham at one time. Certainly one of them kept the Fox and Grapes pre-war. I just about remember visiting the Peel once as a child - this would be in the mid-1950s. It seemed dark and gloomy to me, but fascinating, with a 'club room' (complete with full-size billiard table) on the first floor. My mother, as a teenager, helped my grandmother run the pub unaided during the war - her two brothers were away in the army. According to her, the Robert Peel had a rather mixed clientele in the 1930s, Sneinton then being a very poor working-class district: some local businessmen and respectable railway workers, but also poachers and thieves. Though my grandmother was a diminutive person, she managed to keep a lid on the occasional flare-ups in the public bar. One nickname for the pub at this time was the 'Blood Tub' - enough said.

Stephen York (November 2019)

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