This edition of Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage, the 107th, has several new features. The first is that it is greatly expanded. Not just by adding the large number of life peers created since the 1999 edition, but by including more categories. It now contains knights, dames, Scottish and Irish chiefs and Scottish feudal barons.

For more detailed explanations of what these categories are, see the appropriate section of the Glossary (e.g., knight) or the specialist essays by Sir Bob Balchin (on knights bachelor) and Hugh Peskett (on Chiefs and Scottish feudal barons).

When we announced that we were including knights in the next edition we sparked a good deal of media interest. Some newspapers took us to task, accusing us of dumbing down our product. That was surely misconceived. You don’t dumb down a product by broadening its range, any more than Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is a dumbing down of the formula e=mc² just because it runs to more pages.

Our reaction was simply to point out that we were doing no more than our duty to the public. Knights and dames are honoured by the Sovereign. It isn’t for us to choose who they are. (If only we could.) But it is, we feel, our business to cover them, particularly as there is no other publication that does so fully. Besides, though the media hadn’t grasped the fact at the time, despite our telling them, it wasn’t a new move at all. Past editions of Burke’s had included knights. Indeed the full title at one time was Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage.

We have not expanded the title of our publication to match the greater content. "Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, Dameage, Chiefage and feudal Baronage" would be far too much of a mouthful. Besides, it would introduce at least two neologisms. Unless a book is science fiction, its title ought to avoid doing that. On the other hand a collective noun for a book featuring dames and chiefs is undoubtedly needed. The terms ‘dameage’ and ‘chiefage’ are unlovely, but it is difficult to think of better ones. We are offering a prize for anyone who comes up with an elegant-sounding yet descriptive alternative.

A more telling objection to including chiefs would be that such distinctions do not emanate in their origin from the Crown. But they do represent, to quote Hugh Peskett, ‘an ancient aristocracy, part Gael, part Norse and part Fleming’. The society of which they originally formed the apex was much older than the unitary sovereign state that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that used to be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and (all) Ireland before the Republic of Ireland came into being. Moreover their recognition is regulated by existing departments of state, both in the UK (as also has been the recognition of Scottish feudal barons) and formerly Ireland. In the latter case the department of state in question, the Chief Herald’s Office, is an arm of the successor to the Crown in Ireland.

The result of including these new categories is to make the names of many other articles a little bit longer. That way one can accommodate the variety of similarly named articles while avoiding unnecessary confusion. Take the name Agnew. There are now three articles with Agnew as their central component: (1) AGNEW of Great Stanhope Street; (2) Agnew, Rudolph Ion Joseph, Sir; and (3) AGNEW OF LOCHNAW. There is in addition a cross-reference, (4) Agnew, Chief of; see AGNEW OF LOCHNAW.

Article (1) refers to a non-Nova Scotia baronetcy. (For an explanation of the various types of baronetcy, see the article baronet in the section GLOSSARY.) The holders of (1) have been named Agnew. The suffix ‘of Great Stanhope Street’ serves to distinguish this baronetcy from any other held by people of the same name (who may or may not be relatives of the family holding the baronetcy under discussion, i.e., of Great Stanhope Street).

Article (2) refers to a knight called Agnew. Article (3) refers to a baronetcy that is one of the Nova Scotia ones. Its holder, in traditional Scottish fashion, is either Chief of the Agnews of Lochnaw (as opposed to other Agnews) or holds the territorial barony or perhaps just the lands of Lochnaw. In such cases the ‘of Lochnaw’ type of suffix is known as a territorial designation.

A chap with a territorial designation is ‘Agnew of Lochnaw’, not just ‘Agnew’. The longer version is just as much his name as Joe Bloggs’s surname is ‘Bloggs’ as opposed to ‘Blogg’, ‘Blogs’, ‘Boggs’ or ‘Bogg’. In short, to tamper with ‘Agnew of Lochnaw’, even by detaching the ‘of Lochnaw’ or inserting a comma between ‘Agnew’ and ‘of Lochnaw’, is an assault on the identity of the person who owns the name. It is to this lot of Agnews that the cross-reference in (4) refers.

A further result of including the new categories is that we have listed peerages under their full titles rather than the abbreviated forms in every-day use. Thus for example the Viscountcy of Combermere becomes in its full version ‘COMBERMERE OF BHURTPORE’; the dual Earldom (that is, two earldoms held by one person) of Cork and Orrery becomes in its full version ‘CORK, THE COUNTY OF, and ORRERY’; and the Earldom of Jersey becomes in its full version ‘JERSEY, THE ISLAND OF’.

There is as it happens no other entry in the current Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage for a Combermere, Cork or Jersey. But there was a knight called Cork extant till autumn 2002, when death removed him from our list of articles to be included. And with around a score of new knights being created every year there is no guarantee that individuals having Combermere and Jersey as surnames rather than titles will not qualify for inclusion in future. Listing peerages by full title aims to avoid any confusion between such people and the peers.

A further change since the 1999 edition has been to number succeeding generations 1, 1a, 1b etc rather than 1, (1), 1a, 1b. In addition there is new material not just on family seats, in the sense of the history of the bricks and mortar side, but on the grounds and gardens. This reflects the growing public interest in landscape design as opposed to purely architectural features. In one or two cases, e.g., the Astor family, a short account of former seats is given, since they were so bound up with the history of the family as to be an integral part of it even today.

Finally, we have reinserted cross references to families in the Burke’s Landed Gentry series, including the volumes in that series dealing with Irish families and some American ones. This reflects the highly agreeable state of affairs by which the two series, the Peerage & Baronetage volumes, and the Landed Gentry ones, are back together under the same roof for the first time in more than a quarter of a century. For us, and one hopes all aficionados of family history, it is a homecoming more poignant than Ulysses’s. It certainly took even longer to achieve.

Charles Mosley
Editor-in-Chief
Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage