Sicilian marble statue, a little over life size, showing the sitter bare-headed looking slightly upward to his right, left leg forward and right arm across the front, gripping and about to draw his sword. Behind, a mortar sits on a coil of cable, with an anchor, as support to the figure. This wears captain's full-dress uniform, with epaulettes, the star of the Order the Bath, the Victoria Cross and the Crimea Medal. The whole stands on a square base, which is signed 'W. THEED. SC. / 1860'.

Third son of the former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel Bt (d. 1850), William had a brilliant but short career and was one of the earliest winners of the VC in the Crimean War, though he did not live to receive the medal shown on this statue: the original medal is also in the NMM collection. He died in India, from smallpox contracted while recovering from injuries sustained at the second relief of Lucknow, during the Indian Mutiny.

The statue was presented to Greenwich Hospital, as a national monument to him, by his immediately elder brother, the politician and railway commissioner (Sir) Frederick Peel MP. It was originally installed in the north-east corner of the Naval Gallery in the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital in December 1860, on a classical-style marble plinth which no longer survives. It completed a group of earlier national monuments there (SCU0041, SCU0048 and SCU0051).

There are two other statue versions of Peel by Theed: one, essentially the same as this but smaller and dated 1861, is in St Swithun's Church, Sandy, Bedfordshire: this is probably the one exhibited at the Royal Academy that year. It is there because Peel had earlier bought a small estate at Sandy, which he left to his mother for life in his will and subsequently to his younger brother Arthur. The other version, completed by Theed in 1863, was sent to India and placed in Auckland (later Eden) Gardens, Calcutta, but moved in the 1970s to the Temple of Fame at Barrakpore, with other similar statues from the British 'Raj' era. That one is the largest and shows the figure slightly differently from the Greenwich version, standing in repose.

Theed (1804-91) was one of the most eminent, varied and prolific sculptors of his age. After being a pupil of his father (also a sculptor) and of E. H. Baily, he attended the RA Schools and from 1826 continued his education and practice in Rome, where he stayed for 20 years. He returned to London in 1848, where he soon won wide patronage including from Prince Albert and Queen Victoria.