The title Earl of Home ( /ˈhjuːm/ hume) was created in 1605 in the Peerage of Scotland for Alexander Home of that Ilk, who was already the 6th Lord Home.
The Earl of Home holds the subsidiary titles of Lord Home (created 1473), and Lord Dunglass (1605), in the Peerage of Scotland; and Baron Douglas, of Douglas in the County of Lanark (1875) in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Various Earls of Home have also claimed the title of Lord Hume of Berwick. The Earl is also Chief of the Name and Arms of Home and heir general to the House of Douglas. The title Lord Dunglass is the courtesy title of the eldest son of the Earl.
The most famous recent holder of the title was the 14th Earl, Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, better known as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. After the unexpected resignation of Harold Macmillan, the 14th Earl was named Prime Minister by the monarch. For the first time in over sixty years, a sitting Prime Minister was a member of the House of Lords rather than of the House of Commons. Because he believed that it was impractical and unconventional to remain a member of the Lords, the Earl disclaimed his peerages in 1963 under the Peerage Act passed in the same year. He then contested the House of Commons seat of Kinross and Western Perthshire by standing in the Kinross and West Perthshire by-election, 1963. The seat had been vacated by the death of the previous Member of Parliament, Gilmour Leburn. The Earldom and subsidiary titles belonged to no-one until the death of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, when they passed to his son, the present holder, David Douglas-Home, 15th Earl of Home.
The family seats are The Hirsel, Berwickshire and Castlemains, Douglas, South Lanarkshire.
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The heir apparent is the present holder's son Michael David Alexander Douglas-Home, Lord Dunglass (b. 1987)