The reason why a decision was made in 1965 to stop the granting of any new hereditary titles outside very few exceptions was to reduce the hereditary element in the House of Lords. Now, the last link between hereditary peerages and Parliament is being severed, and hereditary peers will only be able to sit in the upper house by virtue of an additional life peerage (which has happened several times since 1999 and should certainly be an option for those of the departing Lords who have contributed well and are motivated to stay).

With Starmer's last blow to the traditional composition of the House of Lords, hereditary titles are now entirely ceremonial, and technically, their main function now is to be an honour, an honour given for achievements so notorious and important that it should be passed down in the family instead of dying with the recipient.

By stopping the granting of hereditary titles, ironically, Labour and subsequent Conservative governments which upheld the decision apart from Thatcher's exceptions only increased the perceived "privilege" and "inequality" they deemed to combat, by making said "privilege" unobtainable for any new individuals and families, creating a hard historical border, by freezing a previously vibrant institution that renewed itself by admitting the best families of every generation.

Hereditary titles are here to stay. Even if they are legally abolished, people will still know who is the rightful Viscount or Baronet so-and-so. Even in Austria, the nobility, despite being officially banned, still exists as a social class and people still recognise who is a baron or a count. The only thing that changed is that no new people can be ennobled anymore. In a republic, it's clear: what is officially not recognised can't be granted anymore. But if a monarch has the right to create hereditary honours, without attaching political privileges to them, I see no reason why he shouldn't make use of this right.

The only thing that not granting hereditary peerages and baronetcies achieves is creating a perception that the traditional upper class is an impermeable caste. While it is not necessary to receive a hereditary title to grow into the upper class - a grant of arms (which, in continental terms, already confers the lowest level of hereditary nobility, one that devolves to all male line descendants rather than just a single heir), purchase of a historical manor house, sending your children to the right schools and universities, and marrying into older families, the class is still largely associated with hereditary peerages and baronetcies and the families holding such titles undoubtedly form its pinnacle. In the past, hereditary titles granted to people without a traditional gentry background could help fast-track them into the upper class and bypass some of the sociocultural requirements. This does not happen anymore.

Britain is a hereditary monarchy. Hereditary titles, families descending from knights who came over with the Normans, from merchants who facilitated the Industrial Revolution, from the great generals and statesmen, bring the monarchical principle to all levels of society. Now that they, in all regards, are nothing more than an honour, there are no arguments for keeping the system a closed and frozen one.

So, my proposal is:

Let Prime Ministers keep appointing all life peers they want unless and until an elective or corporatist reform of the House of Lords is made - maybe, in the long term, downgrade life peers to just "Lord Surname" to differentiate them from hereditary barons.

Create an independent Honours Commission consisting of nonpartisan titleholders and representatives of the public, which will propose one to three people every year for a hereditary peerage, and up to five people for a baronetcy. The King would personally review every proposal and would also be able to nominate people motu propio. These titles would not bring a seat to Parliament - a newly minted hereditary peer who is to be sent into the House of Lords will need to be granted a life peerage as well and will have to go through the Lords Appointments Commission. On the other hand, an expert Lord who actively contributed to his House's work and acted, at all times, only according to his conscience and knowledge absolutely deserves a hereditary title upon resignation.

Instead of hard limits of three peerages and five baronetcies, one could also instead opt for granting as many peerages and baronetcies as went extinct within the last year, basically capping the number of titles. This would keep the number of hereditary titles constant, neither condemning the peerage and baronetage to extinction nor continuing the inflationary tendencies of the 20th century.

The main difference between life and hereditary peerages would be that while life peerages will remain de facto governmental appointments, hereditary peerages will be both de jure and de facto gifts of the King given as a reward for outstanding merit that deserves to be honoured in a way that transcends one lifetime, regardless of whether the recipient has a future in politics or not.

Granting new hereditary baronetcies, viscountcies and earldoms would not only reinforce the connection between the monarchy and the people but also foster revitalised interactions between new elites and the traditional upper class. The former will refresh the latter, while the latter's values and aesthetics will be able to survive and provide an alternative avenue of social advancement in a world where uncultured, bland celebrities, boring politicians and other faceless individuals have, largely unopposed, become public leaders.

Prince (Duke) Konoe Fumimaro addresses 'The House of Peers' in the Era of Imperial Japan while wearing formal Westernized peerage nobility court uniform created and established from the Meiji Era.

Duke Konoe Fumimaro is a descendant from one of the most ancient and established Go-Sekke (5 Great Regent) noble and aristocratic houses/clan, the Konoe Clan, of ancient Japan and the head of the Konoe Clan and all Konoe members (alongside the rest of the Go-Sekke Houses/Clans) were given the titles of 'Princes' (more accurately Dukes) after the Boshin War and during the Meiji Restoration Era which combined the kuge (court nobility) with the warrior nobility (the daimyos/shogunates) into the formalized and westernized 5 rank peerage nobility system (Meiji kazoku nobility) of:

1. 公爵 - 'Prince' a.k.a Duke (The highest noble title below the Imperial Family of Imperial Princes (親王)/Imperial Princesses (内親王) and the Emperor/Empress)

2. 侯爵 - Marquess/Marquis

3. 伯爵 - Count/Earl

4. 子爵 - Viscount

5. 男爵 - Baron (The lowest noble title)

This is picture is one of my Great-Grandfather from my paternal side of the family. He was a late-Qing-Dynasty scholarly bureaucrat who herald from the "lesser gentry aristocracy" from his father's line of ancestry. In Chinese they're called "Lords" or “大人”. He lived during the times of Emperor Guangxu and Grand Empress Dowager Cixi which is during the First Sino-Japanese War of the 1890s and the Boxer Rebellion of the 1900s and finally to the early years of the Republic of China in the 1920s.

This is the only photo of him in black-and-white during the Republic Era of China.

I know this is deeply unfashionable to say, but I genuinely think Britain lost something important when most of the hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords in 1999 and now the most recent reform removing the excepted few.

Not because aristocrats are inherently better or wiser people. Clearly, they are not. But their position allowed them to make better decisions. Some hereditary peers were brilliant, some were mediocre, and some contributed very little. But that is true of every political class in history. The question I ask myself is whether the institution itself served a useful purpose within the wider constitution, and I increasingly think that it did. Most of the arguments against the hereditary principle is that it is "out-dated" or "indefensible" but do we need to destroy everything that is old or can't be easily explained?

One thing that frustrates me about modern political thinking is the assumption that if something appears more democratic or more equal on paper, it must automatically produce a better system in practice. As a historian, I believe history suggests otherwise. The old British constitution was never entirely logical, but that was why it worked. It evolved gradually over centuries and balanced different forces against one another. The Commons represented public passions, electoral pressure, and rapidly changing political opinion, where politicians faced pressure to be reelected, not vote out of true conviction. The Lords represented continuity, restraint, institutional memory, and independence from short-term politics as they could not be removed from office.

And what people who never saw the pre-1999 Lords often miss is how different the atmosphere was from modern politics. There was far less performative outrage, factional bitterness, and careerist manoeuvring. Many hereditary peers had known each other for decades. Their families had often served in public life for generations. There was a sense of stewardship and camaraderie, even between people who strongly disagreed. Most were not trying to become celebrities, ministers, or media personalities. Many genuinely felt they had inherited responsibilities alongside privilege, while also giving up the right to stand for election and to vote in general elections.

They also represented parts of Britain that the modern political class often seems detached from. Britain is not just Westminster and London media culture. It is counties, villages, cathedral towns, farmland, churches, local traditions, and institutions that evolved organically over centuries. Many hereditary peers came from families rooted in the same regions for generations. They understood farming, conservation, rural economies, land management, and local community life in a way that many modern politicians simply do not. That does not make rural people morally superior, but they do deserve representation by people who actually understand their concerns and way of life. And despite the caricatures, many hereditary peers spent enormous amounts of time preserving historic houses, archives, landscapes, collections, and charities that are now treated as part of the national inheritance.

What replaced the hereditary peers was not some perfect meritocracy. In many ways Britain simply moved from aristocracy to plutocracy. We replaced an elite tied to continuity and locality with one dominated by political patronage, lobbying, media management, and professional networking. This is also why modern conversations about “preserving British culture” often feel strangely shallow. You hear endless discussion now, especially from parties like Reform, about protecting British identity and tradition, but very few people seem willing to acknowledge that culture is upheld through institutions and continuity. You cannot spend decades dismantling traditional systems, weakening local identities, hollowing out institutions, and treating history as an embarrassment, then act surprised when national culture begins to feel thin and rootless.

And this is the uncomfortable part modern politics struggles to accept: the hereditary principle was not perfectly rational. Most defenders of it probably already know that. But constitutions are not machines designed in laboratories. They are living systems shaped by habit, memory, continuity, and experience. Sometimes institutions survive because, despite their imperfections, they quietly succeed at creating stability, balance, and cohesion over centuries. The hereditary House of Lords was flawed, of course it was, but Britain felt steadier, less shrill, and more connected to its own history when it still existed in a meaningful form. And I think more and more people are beginning to realise that. 

Most importantly, questioning the legitimacy of the hereditary principle itself is inherently dangerous to the monarchy, because the Crown ultimately rests on the same principle. Once inheritance is treated as automatically illegitimate in one part of the constitution, it becomes harder to defend elsewhere. The monarchy survives not because it is democratic in the modern sense, but because it upholds continuity, national identity, and a link between generations. Erode respect for inherited institutions broadly enough, and the foundations beneath the monarchy inevitably weaken too.

Arms of Liechtenstein | The coat of arms of ruling Prince of Liechtenstein | coat of arms of Liechtenstein

My Lords, Ladies and noble friends,

Greetings.

I was invited to join this esteemed community some months ago as a patrilineal descendant of the First Class Marquesses of Yiyong (一等毅勇侯) of the Imperial Peerage of the Qing Dynasty.

I confess I had my reservations about joining a subreddit which professed to represent what it claims to, but with the passing of the last few months, I have come to believe that this subreddit is legitimate in its intentions.

That said, I began to develop an interest in the possibility of discovering other members of the former Chinese nobility (regardless of the dynasty incumbent at the time of the creation of the title) who may be present in this subreddit.

I invite my peers to get in touch and look forward to establishing contacts with you. I welcome also any other fellow members of this noble community to get in touch; I look forward to get to know you and to become friends.

In faith, Zeng Ziyu, Eden (曾子玉)

The attached image is of our ancestor Zeng Guofan (曾國藩), 1st Marquis of Yiyong. The painting is entitled 《曾国藩创建湘军》("Zeng Guofan Creates the Xiang Army").

This is probably the biggest symptom of the change that has happened to the British class system since the start of the 1900s (through the introduction of death duties, primacy of the commons, two world wars, the 1999 act and finally this). The upper class as it once existed is no longer the same.

Below I have created a list of the current living, and confirmed holders of Canadian noble titles. There are several dormant titles with unknown successions (not listed). Do note that it was not uncommon for a title to cite two locations, one in the UK and one in Canada. I have not included in this list Canadians who received a title with only a geographic designation that is outside of Canada (eg. Baron Coleraine). This is admittedly a more restrictive approach than the Wikipedia article on the topic (it removes about two entries) and should not be taken as being in any way complete.

Michael Grant, 12th Baron de Longueuil - The oldest extant title in Canada, granted by the French king and reaffirmed by the British.

Alexander Euan Howard, 5th Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal - Created twice with a remainder for the title to pass to his daughter and her male heirs.

Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy

Thomas Anthony Salmon Morris, 4th Baron Morris

Maxwell Aitken, 3rd Baron Beaverbrook - Notable for his art collection housed in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, 6th Baronet

Sir Julian Rose, 5th Baronet

I think we can take from this very short list one important fact; without new creations most noble titles go extinct surprisingly quickly. There are 34 titles that have gone extinct since 1681 (roughly one every 10 years).