The son of a Methodist clergyman,[1] John Harold Peel was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Queen's College, Oxford.

Among the Report's critics was epidemiologist Archie Cochrane, who pointed out that there was little correlation between high hospitalisation rates and lower perinatal mortality.

[2] Peel was the author of Textbook of Gynaecology (1943); Lives of the Fellows of Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 1929–1969 (1976); and Biography of William Blair Bell (1986).

[2] In the 1980s, as sponsor of the Responsible Society, Peel accused the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Social Security of encouraging girls under 16 to have sexual intercourse:[2] Young girls are the victims of exploitation by unscrupulous adults, by misleading information in popular teenage magazines; by pernicious theories from some 'trendy' experts; all leading to the glorification of sex for physical satisfaction alone.Peel was married three times: His first marriage was to Muriel Elaine Pellow in 1936, with whom he had a daughter; in 1947 he married Freda Margaret Mellish; and two years after the death of his second wife, he married Sally Barton in 1993.

Peel was a keen gardener, owned a stock of Friesian cattle on his farm, and enjoyed Salmon fishing on the River Spey in Scotland.