Shirley Ann Milburn

Shirley Anne Milburn was Peel's first wife, who was an American he married in 1965. She was an orphan Peel had first got to know through letters and calls on WRR, where he was working. When he discovered that she was going to be sent to her uncles hundreds of miles away, Peel decided to marry her, despite she being 15 years old. Peel insisted that Shirley sworn to him that she was 16 when married and later found out she really was 15 when police stopped the couple for speeding in Oklohoma, where Peel would start his new job at KOMA. When Peel decided to leave America in 1967, he brought his wife along with him to Fulham in London, where she lived with him for some time. Their marriage in Fulham did not last very long and the couple soon split. In later years, Peel admitted that Shirley would sometimes beat him up and after suffering from domestic violence, he decided to move out and live in an apartment in Regents Park. Peel was still married to Shirley when he found his new love Sheila in 1968, where he met her at the studios of How It Is, where Peel was presenting the TV programme. Shirley and Peel were finally divorced in 1973 and Shirley later served time in Holloway Prison for fraud. Not long after she was released, she suffered a severe bout of depression, where ultimately she committed suicide. Not much information is generally known of her and there are no records on the internet, when and where she committed suicide.