page_title: Hereditary peer
section_title: Modern composition of the hereditary peerage
hierarchical_section_title: Hereditary peer / Current status / Modern composition of the hereditary peerage
caption_attribution_description: Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, England.
context_page_description: The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of 2020 there are 814 hereditary peers: 31 dukes, 34 marquesses, 193 earls, 112 viscounts, and 444 barons.
  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 peers have been created after 1965, four of them members of the British royal family.
  From 1963 to 1999, all non-Irish peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but since the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed, only 92 are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers. Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons.
context_section_description: The peerage has traditionally been associated with high gentry, the British nobility, and in recent times, the Conservative Party. Only a tiny proportion of wealthy people are peers, but the peerage includes a few of the very wealthiest, such as Hugh Grosvenor (the Duke of Westminster) and Lord Salisbury. 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.
  However, the proliferation of peerage creations in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century resulted in even minor political figures entering the ranks of the peerage; these included newspaper owners (e.g. Alfred Harmsworth) and trade union leaders (e.g. Walter Citrine). As a result, there are many hereditary peers who have taken up careers which do not fit traditional conceptions of aristocracy. 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 solidly left-wing policies.
caption: Many hereditary peers are associated with famous estates such as Hatfield House; many notable estates are open to the public.
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