Hereditary peer

The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of August 2023, there are 805 hereditary peers: 30 dukes (including six royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 110 viscounts, and 442 barons (not counting subsidiary titles).

As a result of the Peerage Act 1963, all peers except those in the peerage of Ireland were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Since the House of Lords Act 1999 came into force only 92 hereditary peers, elected by and from all hereditary peers, are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers.^[1] Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons.

Not all hereditary titles are titles of the peerage. For instance, baronets and baronetesses may pass on their titles, but they are not peers. Conversely, the holder of a non-hereditary title may belong to the peerage, as with life peers. Peerages may be created by means of letters patent, but the granting of new hereditary peerages has largely dwindled; only seven hereditary peerages have been created since 1965, four of them for members of the British royal family. The most recent grant of a hereditary peerage was in 2019 for the youngest child of Elizabeth II, Prince Edward, who was created Earl of Forfar; the most recent grant of a hereditary peerage to a non-royal was in 1984 for former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was created Earl of Stockton with the subsidiary title of Viscount Macmillan.

Modern laws[edit]

The law applicable to a British hereditary peerage depends on which Kingdom it belongs to. Peerages of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom follow English law; the difference between them is that peerages of England were created before the Act of Union 1707, peerages of Great Britain between 1707 and the Union with Ireland in 1800, and peerages of the United Kingdom since 1800. Irish peerages follow the law of the Kingdom of Ireland, which is very much similar to English law, except in referring to the Irish Parliament and Irish officials, generally no longer appointed; no Irish peers have been created since 1898, and they have no part in the present governance of the United Kingdom. Scottish peerage law is generally similar to English law, but differs in innumerable points of detail, often being more similar to medieval practice.

Women are ineligible to succeed to the majority of English, Irish, and British hereditary peerages, but may inherit certain English baronies by writ and Scottish peerages in the absence of a male heir.^[2]

List of hereditary baronies in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

List of hereditary peers elected under the House of Lords Act 1999

By-elections to the House of Lords

List of hereditary peers in the House of Lords by virtue of a life peerage

Reform of the House of Lords

Roll of the Peerage

Substantive title

Writ of acceleration

The

Hereditary Peerage Association

(1765). Commentaries on the Laws of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Blackstone, William

(1997). "The British Peerage: The Legal Standing of the Peerage and Baronetage in the overseas realms of the Crown with particular reference to New Zealand". New Zealand Universities Law Review. 17 (4): 379–401. SSRN 420754.

Cox, Noel

(1911). "Peerage" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 21 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 45–55.

Ellis, Robert Geoffrey

(1896). Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George the Third (11th ed.). London: Longmans, Green and Co. Archived from the original on 18 July 2006.

May, Erskine

McCallion, Peter (2003). . Hereditary Peerage Association. Archived from the original on 26 October 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2004.

"Letter to The Earl Alexander of Tunis"

(Report). 18 October 1999. HL 106-I. Archived from the original on 8 September 2008.

First Report from the Committee for Privileges

. The United Kingdom Parliament. 1998–1999. Archived from the original on 30 June 2004.

"House of Lords Debates, Vol. 600, col. 1156"

. Internet History Sourcebooks Project.

"Three Summonses to the Parliament of 1295"

. Tiersma Collection. The Peter C. Tiersma Collection at Loyola Marymount University. 18 June 2017.

"Writ of Summons to Parliament for Lord Fisherwick"

(1844). Baronia anglica concentrata; or, A concentrated account of all the baronies commonly called baronies in fee; deriving their origin from writ of summons and not from any specific limited creation ... whereto is added the proofs of parliamentary sitting, from the reign of Edward I to that of Queen Anne; also A glossary of dormant English, Scotch, and Irish peerage titles. London: Ripon.