The Roll of the Peerage is a public record registering

peers Peers may refer to: People * Donald Peers * Edgar Allison Peers, English academician * Gavin Peers * John Peers, Australian tennis player * Kerry Peers * Mark Peers * Michael Peers * Steve Peers * Teddy Peers (1886–1935), Welsh international ...

in the peerages of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It was created by Royal Warrant of

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

dated 1 June 2004, is maintained by the

Crown Office The Crown Office, also known (especially in official papers) as the Crown Office in Chancery, is a section of the Ministry of Justice (formerly the Lord Chancellor's Department). It has custody of the Great Seal of the Realm, and has certain ad ...

within the United Kingdom's

Ministry of Justice A Ministry of Justice is a common type of government department that serves as a justice ministry. Lists of current ministries of justice Named "Ministry" * Ministry of Justice (Abkhazia) * Ministry of Justice (Afghanistan) * Ministry of Just ...

, and is published by the

College of Arms The College of Arms, or Heralds' College, is a royal corporation consisting of professional Officer of Arms, officers of arms, with jurisdiction over England, Wales, Northern Ireland and some Commonwealth realms. The heralds are appointed by the ...

Background

On 11 November 1999, the

House of Lords Act 1999 The House of Lords Act 1999 (c. 34) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. For centuries, the House of Lords ...

received the

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...

and took effect, removing the automatic right of

hereditary peer The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of September 2022, there are 807 hereditary peers: 29 dukes (including five royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 190 earls, 111 viscounts, and 443 barons (disregarding subsid ...

s to a seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. Until that date anyone succeeding to a title in the peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain or the United Kingdom and proving succession received a

writ of summons A writ of summons is a formal document issued by the monarch that enables someone to sit in a Parliament under the United Kingdom's Westminster system. At the beginning of each new Parliament, each person who has established their right to attend ...

to Parliament. All peers receiving such writs were enrolled in the Register of Lords Spiritual and Temporal, a document maintained by the Clerk of the Parliaments. The Register of Lords Spiritual and Temporal was not a complete roll of the peerage. Succession to a title in the Peerage of Ireland had never conferred an automatic right to a writ of summons in the United Kingdom Parliament, although from 1801 to 1922 elected

representative peer In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to ...

s from the Irish peerage did receive writs. A similar system of representation operated for peers of Scotland from 1707 to 1963, when the right to a writ of summons was extended to all peers of Scotland. However, the Register was an officially compiled roll recording a large proportion of the hereditary peerages of the United Kingdom and its constituent kingdoms. Under the House of Lords Act 1999, the only peers receiving writs of summons to Parliament are

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

s and 92 representatives of the hereditary peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Seventy-five of these representatives are elected by and among the hereditary peers themselves, and fifteen are elected by the whole House from those ready to serve as Deputy Speakers or in any office that the House may require; the remaining two, the

Duke of Norfolk Duke of Norfolk is a title in the peerage of England. The seat of the Duke of Norfolk is Arundel Castle in Sussex, although the title refers to the county of Norfolk. The current duke is Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk. The dukes ...

and the

Marquess of Cholmondeley Marquess of Cholmondeley ( ) is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1815 for George Cholmondeley, 4th Earl of Cholmondeley. History The Cholmondeley family descends from William le Belward (or de Belward), the f ...

, have automatic seats in virtue of their offices of state as

Earl Marshal Earl marshal (alternatively marschal or marischal) is a hereditary royal officeholder and chivalric title under the sovereign of the United Kingdom used in England (then, following the Act of Union 1800, in the United Kingdom). He is the eig ...

and

Lord Great Chamberlain The Lord Great Chamberlain of England is the sixth of the Great Officers of State (United Kingdom), Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and above the Lord High Constable of England, Lord Hi ...

respectively. These 92 and any other hereditary peers who may wish to stand in by-elections for the 90 elected representative seats are the only hereditary peers currently recorded for parliamentary purposes. This falls considerably short of the coverage achieved by the old Register of Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and shorter still of being a full register of hereditary peers.

Royal warrant of 2004

The royal warrant of 1 June 2004 had the express aim of remedying this situation as far as possible, stating in the preamble the desirability of a full record of the peerage. It cited as its model the creation of the

Official Roll of the Baronetage The Official Roll of the Baronetage is an official list of baronets kept by the Lord Chancellor; an abridged version is published online by the Standing Council of the Baronetage. Any person who wishes to claim succession to a baronetcy must prod ...

, achieved by royal warrant of Edward VII on 8 February 1910, and established an analogous roll for recording peers of all five peerages recognized in the United Kingdom.Royal Warrant 01/06/2004 s. 1. The warrant was published in the ''

London Gazette London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

'' on 11 June 2004.

Maintenance and publication of the Roll

The Warrant imposed the duty of creating and maintaining the Roll on the

Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs The secretary of state for constitutional affairs was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The position existed from 2003 to 2007 ...

, acting in consultation with

Garter Principal King of Arms The Garter Principal King of Arms (also Garter King of Arms or simply Garter) is the senior King of Arms, and the senior Officer of Arms of the College of Arms, the heraldic authority with jurisdiction over England, Wales and Northern Ireland. ...

and

Lord Lyon King of Arms The Right Honourable the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the head of Lyon Court, is the most junior of the Great Officers of State in Scotland and is the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grant ...

. On the closure of the Department for Constitutional Affairs in 2007 the duty was transferred, along with the other functions of that department, to the

Secretary of State for Justice The secretary of state for justice, also referred to as the justice secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Justice. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the Un ...

. Maintenance of the Roll is carried out by an official in the Crown Office known as the Registrar of the Peerage and assisted by an Assistant Registrar. From November 2010 the most recent version of the Roll has been published in

pdf Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

on the website of the College of Arms together with the text of the Royal Warrant, information on the creation and maintenance of the Roll, and copies of guidance notes and forms for those wishing to apply to be entered on it.

Method of enrollment

Enrollment is automatically consequent upon creation as a peer and can be applied for by way of proving succession to a peerage to the satisfaction of the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice. Essential items in proving succession are a formal petition and a statutory declaration made by a person other than the applicant. Guidance notes are produced by the Crown Office to assist with simple proof, as where for instance the applicant is closely related to his or her predecessor. More complex succession, where the relationship is distant, may require specific professional assistance from an

officer of arms An officer of arms is a person appointed by a sovereign or Sovereign state, state with authority to perform one or more of the following functions: * to control and initiate coat of arms, armorial matters; * to arrange and participate in ceremo ...

, a genealogist, a legal practitioner or the Registrar of the Peerage.

Effect of enrollment

According to the Royal Warrant any person not entered on the Roll shall not be entitled to the precedence of a peer or addressed or referred to as a peer in any official document. However a peer who is enrolled in a junior title (not having proved a senior title) is nonetheless noted in the Roll as 'customarily styled' by the superior title in question, which is then named—even though succession to this title has not been proved. One example of many is

Viscount Midleton Viscount Midleton, of Midleton in the County of Cork, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1717 for Alan Brodrick, 1st Baron Brodrick, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland and former Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He was ...

, who appears as Lord Brodrick on the Roll, the title to which he has proved succession, with the statement that he is customarily known as Viscount Midleton and a cross-reference from 'Midleton'.

References

External links