Sir, The incorporation of place names into peerage titles is neither a matter of fashion, as Richard Harrison thinks (“A Judge by any other name”, Law, Aug 14), nor to avoid confusion between peers of the same name who are in the House of Lords at the same time (letter, 16 Aug). The nomenclature of peers is, rather, governed by historic rules which serve to ensure the distinctiveness of each peerage title from every title ever created in the whole historical body of the peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom (hereditary, appellate and life), whether the peerages are currently extant or not.

These historic naming conventions have caused some friction between the authorities and newly-created peers. In a memorandum to the Prime Minister of December 1968, Garter Principal King of Arms, Sir Anthony Wagner, who was responsible for maintaining the rules for the naming of peers, noted that while new life peers rarely objected to acquiring the title “Lord”, there had “occasionally been decided annoyance that the rules will not allow of some particular title the peer in question happens to want”.

Garter reported that most incidents of annoyance — “occasionally a real annoyance and more often a minor one” — existed among peers who wanted to keep their own surnames unchanged but who found that, because a peerage with that name had previously been created, they were obliged to include a territorial suffix: “Their favourite remedy is in practice improperly to drop the suffix.” This is what Sir Edmund Playfair, in a letter to this newspaper, November 1968, called “change of appellation (often enforced)”. Others found the reverse position: having been keen to signify a local link (perhaps a former parliamentary constituency) by becoming Lord So-and-so of Somewhere, they found that, because no previous title had been awarded, the “of Somewhere” was precluded by the rules from inclusion in the title.

Garter’s own view was that if the hereditary peerage was to be severed from membership of the Upper House (a situation he would have regretted), then the opportunity should be taken to free members from “the inevitable nomenclatural complexities” of the peerage: “Otherwise I believe the difficulties will grow as the years pass.” He therefore recommended to the Prime Minister that, when reform of the Upper House came, “a line should be drawn under the present hereditary peerage . . . and a new start made with Upper House nomenclature.” The question of law lords’ titles will itself be resolved when the Supreme Court for the United Kingdom is introduced next year and new members are appointed to be Justices of the Supreme Court and not members of the House of Lords.

Chris Ballinger
Osney Lane, Oxford

Explore Letters

• Feedback