A Guide to Terms of Address for British Nobility

explained by David Bratman

I wrote this guide because so many fiction authors using British nobility as characters, particularly when the stories are set in the 19th century or earlier when proper usage was very important and known to everyone who'd be likely to encounter a lord in daily life, get it wrong.

By far the most common error - which I've seen in almost every contemporary American novelist who uses such characters, and even from Brits, even British authors who are of noble descent themselves and ought to know better, is to treat "Lord" and "Lady" as freefloating titles that can be used in front of first names and last names indiscriminately. They are not. "Lord Smith" and "Lord John Smith" mean entirely different things, and a person cannot be both of those at the same time.

Dorothy L. Sayers in her novels of Lord Peter Wimsey gets it right. The contemporary American author Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander, gets it right. I haven't seen much of Downton Abbey, created by Julian Fellowes, but from what I know it seems to get it right. Now you can get it right too.

I don't know what a good source for this is, or even where I learned the correct usage myself, many years ago. Poking around online for material on British nobility didn't reveal anything which concentrates on terms of address, which is where the problem lies. The best I've found is here, but I still think it better if I explain it myself.

This will be 19th century practice, and I'm going to leave out women peers in their own right (as opposed to wives of male peers), who were very rare then. It will concentrate on terms of address for the actual titles, less on other matters of etiquette for dealing with the peerage, or other issues like how many peers there are or were, the origin or history of ranks and titles, or the extraordinarily complicated matter of who, in those days, was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords.

The peerage has five ranks, from top to bottom Duke (Duchess), Marquess (Marchioness), Earl (Countess), Viscount (Viscountess), Baron. Dukes/Duchesses are called Duke/Duchess, and addressed as "Your Grace." All other peers are usually called Lord X/Lady X, where X is their title, not their surname, and are addressed as "My Lord/Lady" (nominative) or "Your Lordship/Ladyship" (accusative). One may refer to, e.g. "The Earl of Grantham" rather than "Lord Grantham" but barons are always e.g. Lord Dunsany, to the extent that there is no term for the wife of a baron other than Lady Dunsany. (Today, women with baron titles of their own are Baronesses, and that term is even sometimes used, but not in the 19C.)

Titles that are the same as the holder's surname existed occasionally in the 19C, but almost all titles were place names. (Not necessarily having anything to do with the holder's residence: The Duke of Devonshire lives in Derbyshire, the Earl of Derby lives in Lancashire.) Holders of peerages were never, ever referred to by their names, only by their titles. (That was then: today they might choose what name to use.) Only exceptions would be formal documents or Who's Who etc. which would give both name and full title, and of course a peer's personal intimates would address them by first names or nicknames. When talking about the whole family, one might use the surname, but most of the people you'd be talking about would not be peers and would use that surname.

Distinguishing a peer from a previous peer holding the same title: a recently deceased one might be referred to "the late Lord X", or if further back you'd say e.g. "The 4th Earl of X."

Children of peers is where it gets really fun. Peers of higher rank always had subsidiary titles that were different from their own, and custom was that the eldest son (heir apparent) would use one of these by courtesy. E.g. the Duke of Devonshire is also the Marquess of Hartington, so that is what his eldest son is usually called. There was a Lord Hartington who was an important politician in the late 19C. He sat in the Commons because he wasn't a peer, he just held the title by courtesy; until he succeeded his father as the 8th Duke in 1891. Wives go along with this.

The younger sons of a duke or marquess are called Lord Firstname Lastname (Lord Firstname for short), and all the daughters of a duke or marquess or - for daughters only - an earl are called Lady Firstname Lastname. That, and that only, is where "Lord Firstname" or "Lady Firstname" is used. See the daughters of the Earl of Gratham in Downton Abbey, who are all Lady Firstname Crawley before they marry. Or Lord Peter Wimsey, who is the younger son of a duke. Or in real life Lord Randolph Churchill, also the younger son of a duke. These too are courtesy titles, the holders are not peers, but they are still addressed as "My Lord/My Lady," at least back then.

A Lady Firstname keeps that style on marriage, unless her husband is a peer and she becomes Lady Title. Thus Lord Peter's sister Lady Mary Wimsey is Lady Mary Parker after marriage. Her husband doesn't get anything. But a Lord Firstname's wife gets something different. When Harriet Vane marries Lord Peter Wimsey, her style is the bizarre but real "Lady Peter Wimsey," and you can see her using it in Busman's Honeymoon.

The widow of a hereditary peer retains her title (remember, it's a title not a surname) with "Dowager" in front of it, to distinguish her from her successor. See, besides the Dowager Duchess of Denver, the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. I think this also applies even if there is no successor. A "Lady Peter Wimsey," which is with a surname, retains that as well, no "Dowager" in that case because there's no title to pass on. (The children would not be Lord or Lady.) She'd only change her surname if she remarries.

There is one place where you would see "Lady Lastname" instead of "Lady Title," and that is the wife of a knight or baronet (a baronet is a hereditary knighthood, but not a peerage). The knight or baronet himself is Sir Terry Pratchett, Sir Terry for short; his wife is Lady Pratchett. (A female knight is Dame, e.g. Dame Judi Dench, but I doubt there were any in the 19C.) Awards like the OBE are not knighthoods; that's another frequent error.

So if a woman's husband is Lord Smith (title, not necessarily surname), she is Lady Smith. If he's Lord John Smith (surname this time), she's Lady John Smith. She could only be Lady Emily Smith if she were the daughter of a high-ranking peer.

It's not just authors who mistakenly treat "Lord/Lady" as a freefloater that can be used anywhere indiscriminately. Current life peers (who sit in the House of Lords by nomination rather than by heredity), whose titles are usually the same as their surname, are often confused and use "Lord" or "Baroness" wrongly in front of their first names, e.g. "Lord David Alton" instead of "Lord Alton" which is correct.