Peerage in the Pierrepont Family

Peerage rules are pretty complicated. Here is a detailed explanation before showing how they are applied to the Pierpont Family. Hang on to your seats – there are a lot of pieces to this…

There are five “levels” of Peers. From lowest to highest these are Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, and Duke. Those at the higher levels are rarer and have a higher status. They are also often associated with specific properties (cities/towns) and may have income associated with those properties. I’m not going to get into those details here. One can simultaneously hold titles at multiple levels.

There are also inheritance rules that are given out with these titles. The most common (at least with the Pierrepont family) is “heirs male of the body lawfully begotten”. (You can see this on the right side of the discussion about one of these titles here.) This means that the title can only be passed on to male descendants. It cannot be given to adopted children (i.e. “of the body”), nor to illegitimate children (i.e. “lawfully begotten”). Another one that shows up in the Pierrepont family is “heirs general…” where it is possible for females to inherit the title (however, because of primogeniture, they are only eligible after all the males have been exhausted).

A final complication is that there are multiple “peerage” records – England, Ireland, and Great Britain. The significance is that those who hold titles in the Peerage of Ireland are not eligible to be members of the House of Lords.

Now, let’s look at the Pierrepont family. There were various titles held over the course of eleven generations – beginning in 1627 and not ending until 1955. In the below I will not list all the individuals involved in each generation, but will leave out younger children and females who did not inherit. All the individuals had the surname Pierrepont except where noted, so I will leave that out to avoid unnecessary repetition. (Note that the dates given here may vary by 1 from other sources.)

In the below, the first six generations match with the genealogical charts that I recently acquired that had been written in 1764. In those charts there are different types of crowns for Baron/Viscount/Earl/Marquis/Duke.

Generation 1

·         Robert (1584-1643) – Created Baron Pierrepont in 1627 and simultaneously created Viscount Newark in the peerage of England. Also created Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1628. The Earl title was “heirs general…”

Generation 2

·         Henry (1606-1680) – inherited all the titles from his father Robert. Also created Marquess of Dorchester in 1645. Survived both his sons, so with no male heirs “of the body” his Marquessate title became extinct with his passing. However, the titles that he had inherited from his father could be passed on to other heirs of his father.

·         William (1607-1678) – as the younger son of Robert, did not inherit any titles and, as he predeceased his older brother, he never got to inherit from him either. However, he did have male children in the next generation.

Generation 3

·         Robert (1637-1666) – predeceased his father, William, so never inherited. However, he did have three sons in the next generation.

·         Gervase (1649-1715) – created Baron Pierrepont of Ardglass under the Peerage of Ireland in 1702. Since he was serving in the House of Commons at the time, he could continue to do so as his peerage was not eligible for the House of Lords.  Later also created as Baron Pierrepont of Hanslope under the Peerage of Great Britain in 1714 at which time he became a member of the House of Lords. Had no male heirs so both of these baronies became extinct when he passed away. 

     Generation 4

·         Robert (1660-1682) – oldest son of Robert, inherited all his great-uncle Henry’s titles, never married

·         William (1662-1690) – second son of Robert, inherited the titles of his older brother, died of apoplexy without children

·         Evelyn (1665-1726) – third and youngest son of Robert, inherited the titles of his older brother. In 1706, created Marquess of Dorchester, a title that had been extinct since the passing of his grandfather 26 years earlier. In 1715 created Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull at which time the title of Earl of that same city was reverted, i.e. given up in exchange for the higher title.

Generation 5

·         William (1692-1713) – at age 20 predeceased his father, but not before having two children

Generation 6

·         Evelyn (1711-1773) – succeeded his grandfather in 1726 at the age of 15, but spent the next 10 years on a “grand tour” of Europe where he was known for gambling and loose living. Died without issue at which time all his titles became extinct. He had married, but the marriage was later found to be bigamous. His nephews challenged his will, but the bigamy was found not to affect his wife’s inheritance of the property.

·         Frances (1712-1795) – younger sister of Evelyn. As a female, the only title which she would have been eligible for was the Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull as that had been created as “heir general”. But since that title had been reverted nearly 60 years prior when her grandfather became a duke, she did not inherit any titles. However, her son Charles was able to be titled in the next generation.

Generation 7

·         Charles (1737-1816) – born Charles Medows to Frances. When his aunt died in 1788 and he inherited the Pierrepont property, he adopted the surname of Pierrepont by Royal License. In 1796 he was created Baron Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont as well as the “courtesy title” of Viscount Newark of Newark-on-Trent. In 1806 he was also elevated to Earl Manvers at which time his Viscount title passed to his second son, Charles, as his first son, Evelyn, had predeceased him in 1801.

Generation 8

·         Charles (1778-1860) – received the Viscount Newark title from his father in 1806, later succeeded his father as Earl Manvers in 1816 at which time he passed the Viscount title to his son Charles.

Generation 9

·         Charles (1805-1850) – received the Viscount Newark title from his father in 1816, but later predeceased his father and the Viscount title passed to his younger brother.

·         Sydney (1826-1900) – received the Viscount Newark title from his older brother in 1850, then the Earl Manvers title when his father passed away in 1860 at which time the Viscount title passed to his son Charles.

Generation 10

·         Charles (1854-1926) – received the title of Viscount from his father in 1860, then the Earl Manvers title when his father passed away in 1900 at which time the Viscount title passed to his son Evelyn.

·         Evelyn (1856-1926) – as the younger son of Sydney, did not receive any titles, however he had a son Gervas, who would later receive them from Evelyn’s nephew.

Generation 11

·         Evelyn (1888-1940) – received the title of Viscount from his father in 1900, then the Earl Manvers title when his father passed away in 1926 at which time the Viscount title passed to his cousin, Gervas. He had suffered a mental breakdown at the age of 17 and was incapacitated the remainder of his life and his estates were administered by a trust.

·         Gervas (1881-1955) – received the Viscount Newark title from his cousin in 1926. When his cousin died in 1940 he received the Earl Manvers title at which time the Viscount Newark title would have reverted. As his only son, Evelyn, had died at the age of only 4 in 1928, he had no male heirs, so all the Pierrepont titles became extinct upon his death. His daughter, Lady Frederica Rozelle Ridgway Pierrepont, inherited the Pierrepont estates on the death of her father in 1955 – she lived until 2015.

 

Impact on the New England Pierpont Family

I had published an article a few years ago about the efforts of the New England Pierponts to see if they could move back to England and claim any of the English Pierrepont titles. Their initial contacts were with Evelyn (1665) but he had no knowledge of his ancestors from before the time of Charles I (1625-1649).

Later, in 1878, a descendant from New England made contact with Sydney (1826) and they viewed records from the ancestral home, Holme Pierrepont, in Nottingham – that being a secondary home at the time as the family was by then living in Thoresby Hall. While those documents were able to verify the ancestral connection to the New England Pierponts, that connection was through Sir George Pierrepont (1510-1564) who had been the grandfather of both the first titled Pierrepont, Robert (1584-1643) and James Pierpont (1580-1664) – James being the grandfather of the Rev. James who had initiated the looking for a connection to those titles.

However, according to the rules of inheritance of peerage, all the English titles had been created with the remainder clause of either “heir male of the body…” or “heir general of the body…”, so with the “of the body” clause the titles could only pass to descendants of the original holder of that title. While titles can be passed to cousins such as in the case of Evelyn (1888-1940) passing the Earl Manvers title to Gervas (1884-1955), that was only because both of them were descendants of the original Earl Manvers, Charles (1737-1816). None of these titles could have been passed “up” the tree to an ancestor of the one originally given the title, then back down another branch (to someone on the New England side – even if they moved back to England). Thus, the efforts of the Rev. James Pierpont or any of his New England relatives would not have been able to amount to anything, even if they had been able to prove their genealogical connection while any of their titled relatives still held those titles.

[Pierrepont Genealogy – two pages]