In 1826 John Burke (1786-1848), of a minor landed gentry family from Co Tipperary, Ireland, published the first edition of the reference book that was to become famous as Burke's Peerage & Baronetage. The full, even prolix, title then was A general and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the United Kingdom for MDCCCXXVI. Exhibiting, under strict alphabetical arrangement, The Present State of those exalted Ranks, with their Armorial Bearings, Mottoes etc., And deducing the Lineage of each House from the Founder of its Honors [sic]. With an Appendix, comprising the Prelates, the Surnames of Peers, Titles by courtesy of their eldest sons, Names of Heirs Presumptive, etc. etc.

Other reference books on the nobility already existed, among them Debrett's, which survives to this day. But they tended to arrange each family according to whatever position its head enjoyed in the Table of Precedence, and specifically, if the family dealt with had a peerage, according to whether the title was a creation in the Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain or the United Kingdom. A taxonomy like that presupposed in the reader encyclopaedic knowledge of the date of a title's creation and its precise rank, to say nothing of which constituent polity that creation had been in out of the five that had eventually coalesced to form the United Kingdom. In practice even Garter King of Arms or a Regius Professor of History would have had difficulty finding his way around such books.

Burke's Peerage & Baronetage was therefore revolutionary, or, to use a modern expression, ‘user-friendly', despite the obsequious treatment of its subject matter which is already evident in the original title quoted above and which was de rigeur for all such books then. Its success was swift, not just because it arranged material sensibly but because it sketched the history of the families as far back as possible, often well before the conferring of the extant title - and sometimes further back than was strictly warrantable according to historical evidence.

It also started the arrangement of the founder of a branch of a family on the left-hand margin and the indentation of successive generations (the founder's descendants, in other words) a set space to the right. By and large it now became possible to trace fairly remote family connections without having to spread a huge sheet of paper on a surface the size of a billiard table. That layout was something of a house speciality and has remained one ever since, making it much easier to read than rival publications. Further innovations included placing illustrations of coats of arms at the top of a family's entry, as happened from the 4th edition of 1833 onwards.

John Burke continued as sole editor till the 9th edition in 1847, when for the first time his younger son John Bernard Burke featured on the title page as co-editor. A single further co-edition followed the next year, after which the sole editor was John Bernard (or J Bernard then Bernard as he began to call himself, particularly from 1854, when as Ulster King of Arms, that is to say a senior herald, he was knighted).

The early editions came out at roughly two-year intervals. From 1840 to 1917 inclusive (and again from 1923 to 1940) Burke's Peerage & Baronetage was an annual. Although Sir Bernard died in 1892 his name was kept on the title page, doubtless for commercial reasons, till 1899 and inserted again for the 1906-17 editions, at first with the rider ‘edited by his sons' then with the names of Sir Henry, his eldest son, or Ashworth P, his fourth son, as co-editors. There was some justification for this since much of the florid narrative dealing with the early histories of the various families was Sir Bernard's and remained in print (and unrevised) long after his death.

But it was also a pity, less on stylistic grounds than on those of scholarship. Sir Bernard had a tendency to treat family legend as historical fact - an unjustifiable attitude in any reference book editor but doubly so in someone who was Ulster King of Arms. And many such legends were not even of great antiquity. Like other supposedly immemorial traditions, they had actually been invented by the Victorians. Sir Bernard's eldest son Sir Henry had a more distinguished career in official terms, reaching the top of the herald's tree as Garter King of Arms, but he published less than his father and was only featured as co-editor of two editions, the 1897 and 1898 ones. It is possible that had he been involved for longer the pruning of fantasy from what was supposed to be a work of non-fiction would have occurred earlier. As it was, only the savage philippics of J Horace Round from the 1890s onwards, following the researches of serious historians like Maitland, Stubbs and Tout, resulted in Burke's Peerage & Baronetage attaining something like comprehensive veracity, and even then it was somewhat belatedly.

What were called new editions had throughout the 19th century often consisted of a previous edition plus an appendix. The great problem with a work the size, complexity and tendency to obsolescence of Burke's Peerage & Baronetage was to amend old material, add new material, typeset it all over again and re-index it without incurring unsustainable costs. What is impressive about the 19th- and early 20th-century editions is nevertheless the sheer amount of detail they contain for an era lacking computer technology. Some of them even have hand-coloured plates of coats of arms. To include those today would push the price of a copy into the thousands of pounds.

The Burke connection was broken in 1919 with the death unmarried of Ashworth, for although Sir Henry did not die till 1930 he had long ceased to be involved with the most famous of the family reference books. Nevertheless the prestige of the work as Burke's Peerage & Baronetage was by now well established and the title has continued to be so called to the present day. The 1921 edition was brought out under the editorship of Mr A Winton Thorpe; the next one, in 1923, under that of Mr Alfred T Butler, Sir Henry Burke's secretary. From 1927 to 1934 Butler and a Miss E M Swinhoe were listed as co-editors. She continued as sole editor of the 1935, 1936 and 1937 issues, following which a Mr Smallshaw took over, though his name is not mentioned on the title page of the 1938, 1939 or 1940 editions. The last of these was little more than a set of corrigenda to the 1939 one anyway. For the 1949, 1953, 1956 and 1959 editions Mr Leslie G Pine was in editorial charge and for the 1963, 1967 and 1970 ones Mr Peter Townend, who has also given help with this edition.

By the early 20th century there were really only two names synonymous with works on the titled families of the British Isles: Burke's and Debrett's. The commercial potential of owning such trade titles began to have some attraction, though perhaps less so than the social cachet. A Mr Mallaby-Deeley (see 1959 edn DEELEY, Bt) was among the proprietors of Burke's Peerage & Baronetage at one stage, following which a US-owned publishing imprint called Shaw's Reference Series acquired control, then the Mercury House Group and later still the Holdway Group. The last of these companies, represented by Mr Jeremy Norman (see NORMAN, Bt), who was Chairman and Managing Director of Burke's Peerage Ltd from 1974 to 1984, in 1973 bought the rights to the Burke's series of publications, which included such titles as Burke's Landed Gentry. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (see RIPLEY, Bt), as he then was (he has subsequently dropped the ‘Montgomery-'), was installed as Executive Editor then Editorial Director and an ambitious publishing programme embarked upon. No new edition of Burke's Peerage & Baronetage appeared, it is true, but some extremely useful works on the genealogies of the British and other royal families were brought out, as were works on country houses in the British Isles and an updating of the Landed Gentry of Ireland renamed Irish Family Records.

Sadly, the programme was never brought to fruition. Rights to the Burke's series went different ways. Those to Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, what would now be called the ‘flagship' publication, vested in a company called Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd and were acquired by Baron Frederick van Pallandt, who is better known as the ‘Frederick' of the 1960s singing duo Nina and Frederick and who was murdered in Thailand a few years ago. From him it passed into the hands of a Mr Joseph Goldberg, who in 1980 brought out a second impression of the 1970 edition, that is to say a straightforward reprinting without any updating whatsoever. In 1989 ownership was acquired by Mr Brian Morris, who was already a publisher. He remains the proprietor and has brought out the present 106th edition, which is a thorough updating and widespread revision of the 1970 edition, not just a second printing.

A wholly separate company called The Burke's Partnership or some other permutation of the Burke's name, which owned rights to most of the other titles, was acquired out of receivership by people associated with the former company, by now defunct. They included an American former managing director of Debrett's Peerage Ltd. The new owners issued numerous press releases but to this day have not brought out a new edition of even one of the old titles. It was not the first time Burke's Peerage & Baronetage and a title originally associated with it had been owned separately. In the 1920s J Maundy Gregory, who touted peerages and baronetcies to war profiteers on behalf of Lloyd George, held rights to Burke's Landed Gentry, though not Burke's Peerage & Baronetage itself. It should by now be clear that it is important to make a distinction between Burke's Peerage & Baronetage, the actual publication, and whatever may issue forth from the offices of whoever owns ‘Burke's Peerage'.

Read part 2 of 4.