Charles Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, spent his childhood near Powderham Castle in Devon, moved to California in his twenties, and inherited the earldom after his father’s death in 2015. Although he has three older sisters, the title and family seat passed to him because of male primogeniture, an ancient rule that until now also carried a seat in the House of Lords. Courtenay was among the hereditary peers who automatically sat in the upper chamber.
This month Parliament approved the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act of 2026, ending the automatic transmission of Lords’ seats through inheritance. As a transitional measure, some current hereditary peers will be allowed to remain until their deaths, but those seats can no longer be passed on to descendants.
Hereditary peers trace back to monarchs granting land and counsel in return for service after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Over the 20th century successive reforms reduced the Lords’ powers and changed its composition: the 1911 and 1949 acts limited its authority, life peerages were introduced in 1958, and a major reform under Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999 removed roughly 90 percent of inherited seats. Even after those changes, 92 hereditary seats remained, a number critics long said sits uneasily with modern democratic expectations. By 2024 public sentiment had grown increasingly skeptical of the unelected chamber.
Historian Eleanor Doughty and others have pointed out that Britain never experienced a revolutionary break with its aristocracy like France did, so peerage and ceremonial traditions have been adapted rather than swept away. The monarchy still owns large estates and retains ceremonial roles across the Commonwealth, and aristocratic styles and titles remain visible in public life.
Courtenay represents a blend of continuity and change. He matches many conventional markers of the peerage—white, male, educated at Eton and Cambridge—but has used his position to press for reform. He has lobbied to end male-only inheritance rules that block daughters from succeeding to titles, criticized the chamber for being gendered and exclusionary, and promoted inclusivity at his ancestral home. At Powderham Castle he has restored the portrait of an ancestor who was exiled for being gay and opened the estate to pop concerts and LGBTQ weddings.
While he opposed losing his automatic seat, Courtenay accepts the move toward a more representative upper chamber and says he will take part in debates over future reform. He has suggested a range of possibilities for restructuring the second chamber—regional or professional elections, lottery or jury-style selection processes—and argued that hereditary peers can offer long-term memory that transcends electoral cycles.
Most Lords are not hereditary. Many are life peers appointed by prime ministers, and a small number of places are reserved for Church of England bishops. Baroness Carmen Smith of Llanfaes, one of the chamber’s younger members, stands out in a body whose average age is around 71 and whose membership is roughly 70 percent male. Raised in public housing and the first in her family not to attend private school, she took her title from the estate where she grew up and has voiced support for scrapping unelected seats in favor of a fully elected second chamber.
Reform has been a pledge of Prime Minister Keir Starmer: abolish hereditary succession first, introduce a mandatory retirement age of 80 for existing peers, and ultimately replace the Lords with a more representative body by summer 2029. Public polling, including a 2025 UCL study, shows appetite for changes that go beyond the government’s immediate plans—for example, 71 percent of respondents in that survey favored capping the size of the Lords, an issue made urgent by the chamber’s lack of a fixed limit and its swelling membership of more than 800.
The 2026 law is the next step in a longer timetable of reform. Some hereditary peers will remain in place for life, but the ability to transmit parliamentary seats across generations has ended. Courtenay says he will focus on contributing to discussions about how to modernize the upper chamber, arguing that experience rooted in long family histories can help preserve institutional memory even as Britain updates its governance.
One practical consolation for families is that estates like Powderham Castle remain private property: stripping the right to a seat in Parliament does not take away land or noble titles themselves. After centuries in which landed rank and lawmaking were linked, Britain has moved to sever the automatic legal franchise that once accompanied inheritance of a peerage.