Hereditary peer
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.
If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, and usually the same peerage; more complex cases were decided depending on circumstances.
Customs changed with time; earldoms were the first to be hereditary, and three different rules can be traced for the case of an earl who left no sons and several married daughters.
Under modern constitutional conventions, no peerage dignity, with the possible exception of those given to members of the royal family, would be created if not upon the advice of the prime minister.
Many peers hold more than one hereditary title; for example, the same individual may be a duke, a marquess, an earl, a viscount, and a baron by virtue of different peerages.
However, Edward IV introduced a procedure known as a writ of acceleration, whereby it was possible for the eldest son of a peer holding more than one peerage to sit in the House of Lords by virtue of one of his father's subsidiary dignities.
A title becomes extinct (an opposite to extant, alive) when all possible heirs (as provided by the letters patent) have died out; i.e., there is nobody in remainder at the death of the holder.
The Forfeiture Act 1870 abolished corruption of blood; instead of losing the peerage, a peer convicted of treason would be disqualified from sitting in Parliament for the period of imprisonment.
The Titles Deprivation Act 1917 permitted the Crown to suspend peerages if their holders had fought against the United Kingdom during the First World War.
The Dukedoms of Cornwall and of Rothesay, and the Earldom of Carrick, are special cases, which when not in use are said to lapse to the Crown: they are construed as existing, but held by no one, during such periods.
The House of Lords Act 1999 also renders it doubtful that such a writ would now create a peer if one were now issued; however, this doctrine is applied retrospectively: if it can be shown that a writ was issued, that the recipient sat and that the council in question was a parliament, the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords determines who is now entitled to the peerage as though modern law had always applied.
The only individual who recently sat in the House of Lords by writ of acceleration is Viscount Cranborne in 1992, through the Barony of Cecil which was actually being held by his father, the Marquess of Salisbury.
Letters patent must explicitly name the recipient of the title and specify the course of descent; the exact meaning of the term is determined by common law.
Some very old titles, like the Earldom of Arlington, may pass to heirs of the body (not just heirs-male), these follow the same rules of descent as do baronies by writ and seem able to fall into abeyance as well.
Many Scottish titles allow for passage to heirs general of the body, in which case the rules of male primogeniture apply; they do not fall into abeyance, as under Scots law, sisters are not treated as equal co-heirs.
The House of Lords has ruled in certain cases that when the course of descent is not specified, or when the letters patent are lost, the title descends to heirs-male.
In the Devon Peerage Case (1831) 2 Dow & Cl 200, the House of Lords permitted an heir who was a collateral descendant of the original peer to take his seat.
The precedent, however, was reversed in 1859, when the House of Lords decided in the Wiltes Peerage Case (1869) LR 4 HL 126 that a patent that did not include the words "of the body" would be held void.
In many cases, at the time of the grant the proposed peer in question had no sons, nor any prospect of producing any, and the special remainder was made to allow remembrance of his personal honour to continue after his death and to preclude an otherwise certain rapid extinction of the peerage.
The patent originally provided that the dukedom could be inherited by the heirs-male of the body of the first duke, Captain-General Sir John Churchill.
George III was especially profuse with the creation of titles, mainly due to the desire of some of his Prime Ministers to obtain a majority in the House of Lords.
Since the start of the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1964, the practice of granting hereditary peerages has largely ceased except for members of the royal family.
Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton received the earldom customarily bestowed on former prime ministers after he retired from the House of Commons.
The most recent policies outlining the creation of new peerages, the Royal Warrant of 2004, explicitly apply to both hereditary and life peers.
[13] However, successive governments have largely disowned the practice, and the Royal Household website currently describes the King as the fount of honour for "life peerages, knighthoods and gallantry awards", with no mention of hereditary titles.
Hereditary peers elected hold their seats until their death, resignation or exclusion for non-attendance (the latter two means introduced by the House of Lords Reform Act 2014), at which point by-elections are held to maintain the number at 92.
In 2024, the Starmer Labour government announced in the King's speech that they would bring in legislation to abolish the remaining hereditary peers' right to sit in the House of Lords.
A few peers own one or more of England's largest estates passed down through inheritance, particularly those with medieval roots: until the late 19th century the dominant English and Scottish land division on death was primogeniture.
For example, Arup Kumar Sinha, 6th Baron Sinha, is a computer technician working for a travel agency; Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, is a popular science writer; Timothy Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland, is an actor and plays David Archer in the BBC's long-running radio soap opera, The Archers; and Peter St Clair-Erskine, 7th Earl of Rosslyn, is a former Metropolitan Police Service Commander.
The Earl of Longford was a socialist and prison reformer, while Tony Benn, who renounced his peerage as Viscount Stansgate (only for his son to reclaim the family title after his death) was a senior government minister (later a writer and orator) with left-wing policies.
