| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Long title | An Act to deprive Enemy Peers and Princes of British Dignities and Titles. |
|---|---|
| Citation | 7 & 8 Geo. 5. c. 47 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 8 November 1917 [2] |
Status: Current legislation | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Titles Deprivation Act 1917 [1] is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which authorised enemies of the United Kingdom during the First World War to be deprived of their British peerages and royal titles. [3]
The British royal family was closely related to many of the royal and princely families of Germany. In particular, while Victoria became queen in 1837, the Kingdom of Hanover, which had been in personal union with the British crown for over a century, passed to her uncle the Duke of Cumberland, who also retained his British titles and princely rank. Similarly, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose German titles passed eventually to the descendants of their youngest son Leopold, Duke of Albany. Thus, during World War I, both Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Ernest Augustus, former Crown Prince of Hanover were British princes and dukes, even while they were also officers in the German Army (as was the latter's son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, who also held British princely rank).
In Parliament, beginning on 18 November 1914, Swift MacNeill, a Protestant Irish Nationalist and constitutional scholar and MP for South Donegal, [4] condemned the Dukes of Albany and Cumberland as traitors and demanded to know "what steps will be taken to secure that [they] shall no longer retain United Kingdom peerages and titles and a seat in the House of Lords." [5] Despite meeting resistance from Prime Ministers Asquith [6] and Lloyd George, [7] MacNeil continued his campaign until he lost his seat in the 1918 election. [8] After MacNeill lost his seat, [9] Horatio Bottomley, Member for Hackney South, took up the charge. [10]
On 13 May 1915, King George V struck the names of seven German and Austrian royals (some of whom had never been British) from the roll of Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter; [11] but peerage titles cannot be withdrawn except by Act of Parliament. [12] In 1917, therefore, Parliament passed the Titles Deprivation Act authorising the deprivation of peerage titles, as well as princely dignities. [13]
The Act allowed the King to establish a committee of the Privy Council, which was to include at least two members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The committee was empowered to take evidence and report the names of British peers or princes "who have, during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty or His Allies, or who have adhered to His Majesty's enemies". The report would then be laid before both Houses of Parliament; if neither House passed a motion disapproving of the report within forty days, it was to be submitted to the King, and the people named would lose their British titles.
Thereafter, a successor of a person that was deprived of a peerage would be allowed to petition the Crown for the restoration of a deprived title; the petition would be referred to a committee of the Privy Council, which would recommend whether the petitioner be reinstated or not. In no event, however, did the Act "affect the title or succession of any person to any estates or other property". [14]
Under the Act, the King appointed to the committee:
The committee was established by an Order in Council issued by the King on 27 November 1917.
The committee issued its report on 1 August 1918 and it was then laid before the Houses of Parliament. Since no resolution was passed by either House disapproving of the report, it was presented to the King on 28 March 1919, and on the same date, the King issued an Order in Council depriving the persons listed in the committee's report of their titles. [15]
By the King's Order in Council of 28 March 1919, the following people were deprived of their titles [15] (names listed in the form given in the Order in Council):
In addition to the Dukedom of Albany and the Dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale (the latter title being represented by two of the four people above), the title of Viscount Taaffe was also lost by its bearer. The Viscounts Taaffe had emigrated from Ireland to Austria in the 1700s and had served the Austrian emperor since that time, even while their Irish title was confirmed as recently as 1860.
No descendant of the Dukedom of Albany or the Dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale has ever petitioned the Crown for the revival of their titles. The last heir to the Viscount Taaffe title, Richard Taaffe, also had not petitioned the Crown before his death in 1967, when the title became extinct.
The House of Hanover, whose members are known as Hanoverians, is a European royal house of German origin that ruled Hanover, Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire at various times during the 17th to 20th centuries. The house originated in 1635 as a cadet branch of the House of Welf, at that time also called by House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, growing in prestige with Hanover becoming an Electorate in 1692. A great-grandson of King James VI and I, George I, who was prince-elector of Hanover, became the first Hanoverian monarch of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714. At the end of his line, Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the throne of the United Kingdom passed to her eldest son Edward VII, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, through his father Albert, Prince Consort. The last reigning members of the House of Hanover lost the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 when Germany became a republic.
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Duke of Albany is a peerage title that has occasionally been bestowed on younger sons in the Scottish and later the British royal family, particularly in the Houses of Stuart and Hanover.
George V was the last king of Hanover, reigning from 18 November 1851 to 20 September 1866. The only child of King Ernest Augustus and Queen Frederica, he succeeded his father in 1851. George's reign was ended by the Austro-Prussian War, after which Prussia annexed Hanover.
Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, was the eldest child and only son of George V of Hanover and his wife, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg. Ernest Augustus was deprived of the throne of Hanover upon its annexation by Prussia in 1866 and later the Duchy of Brunswick in 1884. Ernest Augustus was deprived of his British peerages and honours for having sided with Germany in World War I.
Ernest Augustus ; 17 November 1887 – 30 January 1953) was Duke of Brunswick from 2 November 1913 to 8 November 1918. He was a grandson of George V of Hanover, thus a Prince of Hanover and a Prince of the United Kingdom. He was also a maternal grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and the son-in-law of German Emperor Wilhelm II. The Prussians had deposed King George from the Hanoverian throne in 1866, but his marriage ended the decades-long feud between the Prussians and the Hanoverians.
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of August 2023, there are 805 hereditary peers: 30 dukes, 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 110 viscounts, and 442 barons.
Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain that was held by junior members of the British royal family. It was named after the county of Cumberland in England, and after Teviotdale in Scotland. Held by the Hanoverian royals, it was suspended under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, which revoked titles belonging to enemies of the United Kingdom during the Great War.
Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain that was conferred upon a member of the British royal family. It was named after the county of Cumberland in England, and after Strathearn in Scotland.
The title Viscount Taaffe, of Corren, was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1628, together with the subsidiary title Baron Ballymote. From 1661 to 1738, the Viscounts Taaffe were also the Earls of Carlingford.
Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a royal title normally granted to sons and grandsons of reigning and past British monarchs, together with consorts of female monarchs. The title is granted by the reigning monarch, who is the fount of all honours, through the issuing of letters patent as an expression of the royal will.
The use of the title of Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is entirely at the will of the sovereign, and is now expressed in letters patent. Individuals holding the title of princess are styled "Her Royal Highness" (HRH). The current letters patent were issued in 1917 during the First World War, with one extension in 2012.
Ernst August, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, Prince of Hanover was head of the House of Hanover from 1953 until his death in 1987. From his birth until the German Revolution of 1918–1919 he was the heir apparent to the Duchy of Brunswick, a state of the German Empire.
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia was the only daughter and the last child of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. Through her father, Victoria Louise was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
In the British peerage, a royal duke is a member of the British royal family, entitled to the titular dignity of prince and the style of His Royal Highness, who holds a dukedom. Dukedoms are the highest titles in the British roll of peerage, and the holders of these particular dukedoms are princes of the blood royal. The holders of the dukedoms are royal, not the titles themselves. They are titles created and bestowed on legitimate sons and male-line grandsons of the British monarch, usually upon reaching their majority or marriage. The titles can be inherited but cease to be called "royal" once they pass beyond the grandsons of a monarch. As with any peerage, once the title becomes extinct, it may subsequently be recreated by the reigning monarch at any time.
The Royal Assent given to Titles-Deprivation Act, 1917.
Called to the Irish Bar 1876 and joined the Munster circuit, a QC 1893. Elected Prof Constitutional and Criminal Law, Kings Inns, Dublin 1882 and again 1885, and has examined in the Law School of Dublin University. Author of "The Irish Parliament What it was and what it did, "How the Union was Carried" and other works. Has sat for Donegal South since Jan 1887. An Irish Nationalist.
Mr. Swift MacNeill asked the Prime Minister (1) whether he is aware that the Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, in the peerage of Great Britain, and Earl of Armagh, in the peerage of Ireland, and a prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, is in command of troops in the German Army, engaged in active hostilities against the Sovereign and people of the British Empire; whether he is aware that the first Duke of Cumberland, the paternal grandfather of the present duke, after his accession to the throne of Hanover, took the oath of allegiance in England, and sat in the House of Lords as a peer of Great Britain by hereditary right; whether the present Duke of Cumberland, who was born a British subject, has since divested himself of his British nationality and, if so, how and when; and whether, having regard to the fact that the present Duke of Cumberland is in arms with the enemies of the British Empire against the Sovereign of that Empire, and guilty of high treason, any and, if so, what steps will be taken to secure that he shall no longer retain British and Irish titles or peerages and a seat in the House of Lords; and (2) whether he is aware that the Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron Arklow, in the peerage of the United Kingdom, prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, is in command of troops in the German Army, engaged in active hostilities against the Sovereign and people of the British Empire; whether he is aware that the Duke of Albany was born in England, a subject of the British Crown, and succeeded, at his birth as a posthumous child, to these United Kingdom titles or peerages held by his father, who swore allegiance and sat as a peer of the United Kingdom in the House of Lords by hereditary right; whether the Duke of Albany has ever divested himself of his British nationality and, if so, how or when; and whether, having regard to the fact that the Duke of Albany is in arms with the enemies of the British Empire against the Sovereign of this Empire, and guilty of high treason, any and, if so, what steps will be taken to secure that he shall no longer retain United Kingdom peerages and titles and a seat in the House of Lords?
Premier Asquith replied that he did not believe the time of the House would be employed profitably with such legislation.
Mr. S. MacNeill asked the Prime Minister whether any, and, if so, what, steps have been taken under the provisions of the Titles Deprivation Act, 1917 which received the Royal Assent on 8th November, 1917, for the striking out of the Peerage Roll peers who have, during the present War, borne arms against His Majesty or who have adhered to His Majesty's enemies; and, if no steps for this purpose, as provided by Statute, have been taken, will he say what is the reason for the delay, having regard to the construction likely to be placed on the attitude of the Government in this matter?
Mr. Bottomley asked the Prime Minister whether it is proposed to abolish the peerages of which the Dukes of Albany and Cumberland have recently been deprived; and, if not, whether the heirs of such dukes will ultimately become eligible for the assumption of the titles?
The King, as sovereign of the Order of the Garter", says an official announcement issued this evening, "has given directions that the following names forthwith be struck off the roll of the Knights of the order: The Emperor of Austria, the German Emperor, the King of Württemberg, the Grand Duke of Hesse, Prince Henry of Prussia, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and the Duke of Cumberland.
An Act of Parliament is needed to expel a peer
Their Lordships do humbly report to Your Majesty that the persons hereinafter named have adhered to Your Majesty's enemies during the present war: —His Royal Highness Leopold Charles, Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow; His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, Earl of Armagh; His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus (Duke of Brunswick), Prince of Great Britain and Ireland; Henry, Viscount Taaffe of Corren and Baron of Ballymote