''Burke's Landed Gentry'' (originally
title
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...
d ''Burke's Commoners'') is a reference work listing families in Great Britain and Ireland who have owned rural estates of some size. The work has been in existence from the first half of the 19th century, and was founded by
John Burke. He and successors from the Burke family, and others since, have written in it on
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
and
heraldry
Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, Imperial, royal and noble ranks, rank and genealo ...
relating to
gentry
Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...
families.
["The History of ''Burke's Landed Gentry''" Burke's Peerage & Gentry, 2005, Scotland, United Kingdom, ww.burkespeerage.com]
It has evolved alongside ''
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage''. The two works are regarded as complementing each other. Since the early 20th century, the work includes families that historically possessed landed property.
Rationale

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the names and families of those with titles (specifically
peers and
baronet
A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...
s, less often including those with the non-hereditary title of
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
) were often listed in books or manuals known as "Peerages", "Baronetages", or combinations of these categories, such as the "Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage". As well as listing genealogical information, these books often also included details of the right of a given family to a
coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...
. They were comparable to the
Almanach de Gotha in continental Europe.
In the 1830s, John Burke, the author of ''Burke's Peerage'', expanded his market and his readership by publishing a similar volume for people without titles. The title of the first edition in 1833 expressed its scope clearly: ''A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying Territorial Possessions or High Official Rank, but uninvested with Heritable Honours''. It looked at both the family history and the arms of selected families who owned land or occupied important posts in the United Kingdom, but did not hold inherited titles.
At the time the series started, the group it covered had considerable political, social and economic influence in their localities and in some cases nationally. During the 20th century, the power of rural landowners and the public's interest in buying books about them largely disappeared. Few of the families in the books still own country estates, a rare example being the
Fulfords of
Great Fulford near
Dunsford in
Devon
Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
who were mentioned in the 2012
TV series
A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming platf ...
"Country House Rescue" and were described in ''Burke's Landed Gentry'' as having lived there since the reign of King
Richard I
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199), known as Richard the Lionheart or Richard Cœur de Lion () because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior, was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ru ...
(1189–1199).
Until 1914, possession of landed property was a strict requirement. If a family sold or lost its estates, it was no longer included in ''Burke's Landed Gentry''. Illustrating this point, at least half of the families included in 1861 were omitted from the 1914 edition. Following the alienation of families from their land after
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, the editors considered that such a strict policy was no longer productive, and in recognition of historical and genealogical value many pedigrees appeared titled (family name) 'formerly of' or 'late of' (place).
[Burke's Landed Gentry 18th Edition (1972), editorial preface, Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd]
A review of the 1952 edition in ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' noted:
Uses
Owing to the characteristic prose style developed by
John Burke, the publication's founder, the material included in Burke's Landed Gentry, often based on work by many earlier authorities, was made more readable than had previously been the case, a style maintained by his successors. This prose style, when subsequently employed by John Burke's son,
Ulster King of Arms Sir
Bernard Burke, took a turn towards flowery wording in keeping with the literary tastes of the Victorian period in which he wrote.
[
Families were arranged in alphabetical order by surname, and each family article was headed with the surname and the name of their landed property, e.g. "Capron of Southwick Hall". There was then a paragraph on the owner of the property, with his ]coat of arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...
illustrated, and all his children and remoter male-line descendants also listed, each with full names and details of birth, marriage, death, and any matters tending to enhance their social prestige, such as school
A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...
and university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
education, military rank and regiment, Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
cures held, and other honours and socially approved involvements. Cross references were included to other families in ''Burke's Landed Gentry'' or in ''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage'': thus encouraging browsing through connections. Professional details were not usually mentioned unless they conferred some social status, such as those of civil service and colonial officials, judges and barristers. After the section dealing with the current owner of the property, there usually appeared a section entitled ''Lineage'' which listed, not only ancestors of the owner, but (so far as known) every male-line descendant of those ancestors.
The widespread inclusion of family legends which, due to the large number of families included in each edition, the Burke family were unable to comprehensively check, resulted in some criticism of the accuracy of information contained in the volumes. Accordingly, more recent editions are more scrupulously checked and rewritten for accuracy. Advertisements for the 1894 edition stated: "Apocryphal statements, which had crept into former editions, have been expunged, erroneous particulars and incorrect descents discovered and omitted..."
This dedication to accuracy reached its peak under the chief editorship, from 1949 to 1959, of L. G. Pine – who was very sceptical regarding many families' claims to antiquity: 'If everybody who claims to have come over with the Conqueror were right, William
William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...
must have landed with 200,000 men-at-arms instead of about 12,000',[Time magazine, 'Twentieth Century Squires', 10 December 1951] – and Hugh Massingberd (1971–83).
Editions
General
Irish supplement
The early editions of ''Burke's Landed Gentry'' were "of Great Britain and Ireland". After 1899, to allow the authors to cover the topics in more depth, there was a Great Britain edition and an Ireland edition. The Ireland edition is important for genealogists, because it includes not only the Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
(12th century onward arrivals) and the New English families (16th century onward arrivals), but also some of the leading elements of the Gaelic Irish families who previously ruled vast swathes of Ireland and maintained some influence, including the O'Briens, the O'Conors, the MacCarthys, the Kavanaghs, and more.
See also
* ''Burke's Peerage
Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher, considered an authority on the order of precedence of noble families and information on the lesser nobility of the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1826, when the Anglo-Irish genea ...
''
* 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 ...
Notes
External links
burkespeerage.com
*
{{Authority control
.
1833 non-fiction books
History books about England
Society of England
Society of Wales
Literature on heraldry
British biographical dictionaries
19th-century history books
20th-century history books
British genealogy
Irish genealogy