House of Lords Now Contains Over 700 Members

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 625, 30 March 1929, Page 17

House of Lords Now Contains Over 700 Members

to the advance - j sheets o£ “Debrett’s CPw&Mhl? Peerage, Baronetage, ctAtH/wS Knightage and ComwJjLjKT panionage,” the most £ important changes in the membership of the British House Of Lords since 1915-19 took place in 1928. The membership is now 715, a gain of three over 1927, brought about by the following circumstances: — Ten new Peerages have been created, seven ‘ have become extinct, four minors have become of age and have entered the House, and 31 members have died, three of whose successors are minors. Of those who died probably the best known abroad were the Earls of Abingdon, Oxford and Asquith, and Haig; Viscounts Cave and Haldane, and Barons Dalziel, Sackville and Tennyson. Among the dead was also the Earl of Mayo, an Irish Representative Peer, which has brought that body, originally of 28, down to The titles which became extinct ■were those held by Viscounts Cave and Haldane and Barons Buckland, Dalziel, Eversley, Lamboufne and Stratbclyde. By the death. of the Marquess of Lincolnshire the marquessate. with the Carrington earldom and the Wendover viscountcy, became extinct also, but the two Carrington baronies passed to the brother of Viscount Wendover, who was killed in the World War. The Viscount was the Marquess’s eldest son, who, had he lived, would have succeeded to the Marquessate. The Peers created were Prince Henry, as Duke of Gloucester, and the Barons Atkin, Davidson of Lambeth, Ebbisham, Hailsham, Lugard, Melchett, Remnant, Strickland and Wraxall. The minor Peers wl;o became of age are the Earl of Erne and Barons Acton, de Clifford and Port-

j land; the new Peers who are still minors are Earls Haig, Oxford and Asquith and Warwick. An important peer to become of age this year will lie the Duke of Norfolk, whose duties as Earl Marshal of England, as well as those of the head of British Catholics, are now being discharged by his | uncle, Viscount Fitz Alan. The sixteenth Duke of Norfolk will reach his majority on May SO. The Father, or Dean, of the House is still the Earl of Coventry, who ; succeeded his grandfather in 1843, and his heir is his grandson, born in 1900, whose father died two years ago. But the house’s oldest member i is Lord North, who is now in his i 93rd year, having entered the House just 59 years after Lord Coventry. In 1928, however, the House lost two of i its most aged members, Baron Ever- | sley, aged 96, and the Earl of Abingi don, aged 92. * Changes in the Episcopal Bench of j the House were also important. The resignation of Archbishop Davidson of Canterbury caused the following 1 alterations: He was succeeded at | Canterbury and in the Primate3hip Iby the Archbishop of York, whose successor is Dr. Temple, Bishop of Manchester;. Dr. Warman, Bishop of | Chelmsford, takes the see of Manchester. The youngest Peer in the House is now the Earl of Gainsborough, born on October 24, 1923. The large number of minor peers, 27, is measurably owing to war casualties. The record of 1928 also shows the death of a number of heirs to peerages. Viscount Trematon, the only son of the Earl of Athlone; Viscount Broome, Earl Kitchener’s son, and the next heirs of the Earl of Harwicke and of Barons Ashbourne, Daresbury and Norton. By the creation of 'the widow of Viscount Cave a countess the number of peeresses in their own right was raised from 18 to 19.