Facing a serious famine in Ireland in 1845, the Peelites sought to lower food prices by repealing the Corn Laws.
Their main political positions at that time were closer to the Protectionist Conservatives than to the Whigs and Radicals in parliament, except on the issue of free trade.
In that same year, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen was invited by Queen Victoria to form a coalition government with the Whigs and the Radicals.
The group further lost cohesion with some members including William Ewart Gladstone, Sir James Graham and Sidney Herbert accepting cabinet posts in the new government led by Viscount Palmerston only to resign a few weeks later when the government agreed to hold a commission on the conduct of the recent war.
On 6 June 1859 a meeting was held at the Willis's Rooms, St James Street with most of the remaining Peelites agreed to combine with the Whigs, the Radicals and the Independent Irish Party members of the United Kingdom Parliament to bring down the Conservative government of Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby in a vote of no confidence.