Talk:Australian peers

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The below comments were moved from talk:Peerage of the Commonwealth of Australia

I am not convinced that there has ever been a peerage of the Commonwealth of Australia as opposed to British peerages. Certainly if there was, this article should explain it and not just list recipients. Also the terminology of "Baron of Y" is, I think, wrong. It should be "Baron X of Y". --Bduke 17:18, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought of going down the path of Baron x of y, but some of these peerages have since changed hands and I only padded each peerage with the 1st recipient, not the 2nd etc. Although part of the honours of Monarchy of Australia (that we happen to share with the British), I have put together a list of the titles that are wholly Australian. All the recipients were granted dual peerages, an Australian one and a UK one (probably because we don't have a House of Lords). Similar peerages appear for New Zealand, Canada and other Commonwealth Countries that use the British Monarch as their Head of State. In this article I thought I'd describe what I found when looking at the British peerages as the list specifically states that all these as "peerage of the Commonwealth of Australia". (Not to be confused with an 19th century term of Bunyip Aristocracy attributed to Wentworth about Jacob Hagan's plans for an Australian House of Lords. I'll try and expand the article at some point. petedavo 10:56, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The title is a bit misleading. Notwithstanding the dual Australian-British "territorial designations", as they're called, the baronies and so forth were, as far as I know, all created solely in the Peerage of the United Kingdom and the holders were eligible to sit in the UK House of Lords until 1999, barring any issues of naturalization. (This wasn't precisely a novelty; a number of Irish peers were created with English territorial designations, owing to the use of the Irish peerage as a dumping ground for British political jobbers.) Furthermore, baronetcies are a bit betwixt and between; they're hereditary titles, but not peerages. Perhaps it would be better to move the article to something like Hereditary titles created for Australians, which would encompass both. That said, kudos on compiling the list, which is quite interesting. Choess 03:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

As an aside, see Welsh Peers, a similar list of nobles with a territorial connection; it may prove inspiring. Choess 03:25, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
We do have a separate Queen of Australia, although at present it is the same as the British, it is not mandatory that the next one etc will be the same. Same with other Commonwealth countries like Canada, however since the letters patent describe two titles for each, one being Australian, and one being English, an assumption was that one was created by the Monarch as the Monarch of Australia, whilst the other was created as the Monarch of Britain. Of course some of these were never Australian citizens, like Birdwood or Slim, it an interesting list, even if not strictly following a correct protocol etc. I'd like to see such a list for Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Jamaica etc.petedavo 10:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I think you're reading too much into the territorial designations, which don't really have legal status. As a counterexample, consider Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, who was first ennobled in 1892 as a "Baron of the said United Kingdom" with the "name, style and title of Baron Roberts of Kandahar, in Afghanistan, and of the city of Waterford". Even at the height of their power over Afghanistan, the British only claimed to dictate the conduct of foreign affairs by its emirs, not to grant titles or have any hand in its honours system, whatever that was. Since the monarch never exercised sovereignty over the territory thus designated (Kandahar), it follows that the appearance of overseas territories in the designations of other UK peers doesn't necessarily represent an exercise of the sovereign's power over those countries. That said, it's presumably a function of HM the Queen's status as Queen of Australia that these honours are recognized there.
Anyway, as far as the heterogeneity of the list, Welsh Peers works in pretty much the same way as your present list, so I agree that the list is interesting and worthy of preservation. I see that "Welsh Peers" also includes baronets, so perhaps we can just move this page to Australian Peers for naming consistency? And I agree that lists for Canada and so forth would also be interesting — I was working on the Graaff Baronets not too long ago, for instance. If you like this sort of thing, Cassiques may also interest you, although the article needs some cleanup. Choess 12:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you. And baronetcies aren't part of the peerage, but I'm sure you know that! --Counter-revolutionary 13:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
That's a pretty good idea Australian Peers. I will probably have the time to do that later if someone else doesn't take it up. Will be a few pages linking here that will need changing and so forth, and the cat will need to be done as well to be consistent, but it's be better to take up the idea, than to loose the article later due to an afd or something just for a technicality. petedavo 22:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] New article, old article redirects here

Done. Article now moved.petedavo 08:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A few queries

Good start, but I have a few issues with this article.

  • As noted above, baronetcies are not part of the peerage, so all all references to Clarke and Way should be removed.
  • Although they both had significant Australian connections, Slim and Birdwood were not Australians. Their titles do include reference to Australian places (although there is no such place as Anzac in the Commonwealth of Australia), but this no more makes them Australian peers than Baroness Sue Ryder of Warsaw’s title makes her a Polish peeress. Maybe there should be a separate section towards the end of the article for these peers who had Australian associations but who were not Australians as such.
  • We say Birdwood’s grandson is the 3rd baronet; this should be 3rd baron
  • Bruce – “our only Prime Minister to be awarded a peerage” – the tone should be neutral, and not suggest that the article is written only by Australian editors.
  • There’s no mention of life peers – Lord May of Oxford immediately comes to mind. He was made a life peer only in 2001, and I have still not got to the bottom of why Australians are still being given these Imperial gongs despite clear Australian government policy from both sides of the political divide not to permit them. -- JackofOz 12:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I started this only because I found this issue fascinating. The changes suggested would be great. What's mentioned against each name is only just copied from the particular persons article. petedavo 02:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I've had a go at a serious clean up. I decided to leave the baronetcies in, but place them last; even though they're not peerages, they are a form of hereditary honour, and people interested in such matters would probably appreciate them. -- JackofOz 04:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

While Not peers, the Baronetcies are hereditary titles and as such this is probably a suitable place for them to be located (with an explanation). Not putting them here will probably just creat confusions.

Does this mean the only currently active hereditary titles is the Clarke Baronetcy?Deathlibrarian (talk) 10:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks that way, but I can't speak for the completeness of Petedavo's original list. In fact, I'm sure there are other Aussies we can include here. "Who's Who in Australia" used to include lists of living Aussie peers, baronets and knights, and I'm sure I remember reading about 10 years ago about a woman from country NSW who became a peeress - she had a name like Trixie something. I'll check it out at the library tomorrow, if I remember. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


My original intent to create some sort of list was born out of the curiosity of finding out that Bunbury in WA was going to be a Baroncy, so I thought 'I wonder if there is any others'. My intent here is to present a list of Titles created for Australian Places, not for Australians specifically. I was going to originally include people with titles living in Australia, like Lord Alistair McAlpine etc but had to start applying limits to the list. The first limit was knocking out everyone of knight and below, therefore that left Baronetcies and above, so I called it Peers only for the shake of stopping people adding knights and below.petedavo (talk) 00:13, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. The title is a little misleading, in that case. "Australian Peers" refers to people. If you wanted to restrict it to titles, it might have been "Australian Peerages". But that would immediately capture all Australians who hold UK peerages, including any whose titles make no reference to Australian places. I suppose a better description of what you wanted would be "Peerages with Australian-related Titles", or something like that. Btw, I've just noticed we're listing Howard Florey under Hereditary Peerages but we say he was a life peer (which he was). I'll fix it. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


Ta daaa! I've found Trixie - she's Rachel Trixie Anne, Baroness Gardner of Parkes see here. -- JackofOz (talk) 13:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
And now there's an article on her. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roberthall

Having never heard of this person, I did some digging. This tells us that Sir Robert Lowe Hall (d. 17 September 1998) was created Baron Roberthall, of Silverspear in Queensland and of Trenance in the County of Cornwall [U.K. LIFE PEER] on 28 October 1969.This confirms those details. Note: It's Silverspear, not Silverspur.

So, he's apparently a Briton who was given a Life Peerage whose title includes an Australian place. This puts him into a category of his own. I'll see if I can create a new category. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Nope, he was an Aussie who moved to the UK. [1]. He belongs with Florey and May. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] What does this mean ??

Such honours included peerages, which at that time were all hereditary Eregli bob (talk) 11:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

"at that time" means what time ?? Most of the Australian peers that spring quickly to mind ( Lord Bruce, Lord Forest, Lod Casey ) were ennobled after the invention of "life peerages".

It refers to "originally" in the preceding sentence, "Australians, then being British subjects, were originally eligible to receive British Imperial Honours". It was meant to refer to the entire period from 1788, or more particularly from 1901, up until the period when our governments started to longer recommend British Honours for Australians, which started with Whitlam. Life peerages only started in the early 1960s. Bruce's and Forrest's peerages were definitely created as hereditary peerages because there was no other way to do it prior to life peerages. Casey was a life peer. A fuller list is in the article but I'm sure we've missed one or two. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Correction. Life peerages started in 1958. It was possible to create them prior to that, but the practice was obsolescent. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Monarchial title" section

I can't quite see the relevance of this to the article. The monarch is not a peer, and while there is a "Queen of Australia", Elizabeth II is not an Australian. Her titles etc are amply covered in the Q of A article. Any objections to removing this section? -- JackofOz (talk) 23:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I stuck it in because it is a title with an australian geographical reference, that's all. Petedavo talk contributions 12:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)