THE NEW PEERAGE: RECRUITMENT TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 1704–1847

Abstract

New entrants to the British peerage between 1700 and 1850 included both traditional landed magnates and men from humbler backgrounds. The rate of recruitment accelerated rapidly after 1782. This article identifies and analyses the social and economic backgrounds of new peers and the reasons for which titles were bestowed. While the inclusion of large numbers of Irish and Scottish grandees sustained the longitudinal sinews of the peerage, war and empire produced an increasing number of titles awarded on merit. Men of modest backgrounds had always been admitted to the elite, but ‘Old Corruption’ and the marriage market allowed most of their descendants to blend in with the old peerage after a few generations. The wave of new recruits, especially after 1782, included numerous relatively poor or landless men, and governments increasingly intervened with grants of multi-generational annuities in order to protect the status of the peerage while continuing to use titles to reward new men. Ministers boldly and astutely acted both to preserve the pre-eminence of the old order and encourage the prowess of state servants as Britain bestrode the globe. A new peerage emerged to help save the old.