Cracroft's Peerage
The Complete Guide to the British Peerage & Baronetage

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Long ago I decided that if at all possible Cracroft's Peerage should be a web-based genealogical resource that is free to all users. However, it costs over £1,000 a month to keep Cracroft's Peerage going.  The harsh reality is that over the years I have paid out a lot of my own money to fund the website as well as carrying out field visits for on-site research and acting as an unpaid knowledge expert.  There will shortly come a time when I will be forced to consider closing down Cracroft's Peerage due to dwindling resources.  If this happens then an awful lot of dedicated hard work will be lost to you.  So, if your visit has been worthwhile or has been of professional benefit, then please consider making a donation, however small, to The Peerage Research Trust. This is the charitable side of Cracroft's Peerage and exists to sponsor academic research into peerage and related matters as well as to raise funds so that I can continue to maintain and develop Cracroft's Peerage. To make a donation, please click on the "Donate" button below.

 


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Introduction

 

Arms of Patrick Cracroft-Brennan, Editor of Cracroft's Peerage

(Scottish matriculation of 1991 based on an Irish grant of 1986 to the Editor's grandfather)

 

Welcome to Cracroft's Peerage!

 

For almost 750 years a peerage has been the highest honour that a grateful Crown could bestow on its most well-deserving subjects.  From Admirals to Generals, politicians to royal bastards, superannuated back benchers to Nobel Prize winners, agrarian experimenters and social reformers, those ennobled have been the makers of history in the British Isles.  While modern sociologists might condemn the whole concept of peerage as being an abuse of privilege and class, it is impossible to study the history and heritage of the British Isles without taking into consideration the contribution of this remarkable group of people.  The Crown has created over 2,560 hereditary peerages since the mid-13th century, of which 828 still survive.  There have also been about 1,130 life peerages created in the last one hundred and thirty years, of which 595 are currently sitting in the House of Lords.

 

Cracroft's Peerage has been designed to be both informative and simple to use. The following article explains the use of the hypertext navigation feature. If you have any problem with with using any of the pages, then please do not hesitate to contact us at info@cracroftspeerage.co.uk.

 

 

Other articles of interest in this section:

 

One of the major drawbacks of traditional printed-on-paper peerages such as Burke's Peerage or Debrett's Peerage is that they quickly become out of date, especially when published once every few years or so.

 

We hope to avoid this with Cracroft's Peerage by issuing several updates each year, containing not only updated information but also new and additional information.

 

In many respects a work such as Cracroft's Peerage is only as good as the information it contains. Although we try very hard to be accurate, there are times when we miss a piece of information or the sources we use are misleading. In these cases we welcome notes and comments from our users. Please do not hesitate to contact us at research@cracroftspeerage.co.uk if you find an error in the text or have additional information for us to use. Although we rely on the social columns of the major newspapers for details of births, marriages and deaths of current peerage and baronetage families, there are always some events not recorded in the broadsheets and it would be very useful if we could be kept up to date with these.

 

Website last updated 26 Oct 2020

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