Alexander Peckover, 1st Baron Peckover

Alexander Peckover, 1st Baron Peckover FRGS, FSA, FLS (16 August 1830 – 21 October 1919), was a British Quaker banker, philanthropist and collector of ancient manuscripts.

Peckover was born at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the son of Algernon Peckover, of Bank House, Wisbech, by Priscilla Alexander, daughter of Dykes Alexander, a banker, of Ipswich, Suffolk. He was educated at Grove House School, Tottenham, London. The Peckovers were a Quaker banking family and owners of the Peckover Bank, which later merged into Gurney, Peckover and Company, of which he was a partner between 1847 and 1894. His sister Priscilla Hannah Peckover was a pacifist and linguist. In his retirement he devoted himself mainly to metereological studies and the collection of ancient manuscripts. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Linnean Society of London and a member of the Hakluyt Society and the British Numismatic Society. In 1893 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, a post he held until 1906. The following year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Peckover, of Wisbech in the County of Cambridge. He had only daughters and is said to have declined the offer a special remainder that would have allowed the title to descend through his daughter to his grandson, stating that "if my grandson want the title he should earn it".

Lord Peckover married Eliza Sharples, daughter of Joseph Sharples, a banker, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1858. They had three daughters. Eliza died in August 1862, only a year after the birth of her youngest child. Lord Peckover remained a widower until his death in October 1919, aged 89. His title died with him. His daughter Elizabeth married the artist J. Doyle Penrose.