Earl Chicken

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Coat of arms of the Earls Poulett

Earl Poulett was a hereditary British title in the Peerage of England .

Until the 1930s, the Earls' family seat was Hinton House in Hinton Saint George, Somerset .

Award and subordinate titles

The title was created on December 24, 1706 for John Poulett, 4th Baron Poulett . Along with the earliest title, he was given the subordinate title Viscount Hinton , of Hinton St. George in the County of Somerset. As early as 1679, he had inherited the subordinate title of Baron Poulett , of Hinton St. George in the County of Somerset, from his father, which had been granted to his great-grandfather John Poulett on June 23, 1627 by means of letters patent .

background

The Poulett family descended from Sir Anthony Paulet († 1600), who served as governor of Jersey and captain of Queen Elizabeth I's guard . More distant branches of the family can be found under the spellings Paulet and Powlett , some of which became known as Duke of Bolton , Marquess of Winchester or Duke of Cleveland .

Sir Anthony Paulet's eldest son, John Poulett, was a Member of the House of Commons for Somerset and Lyme Regis in the House of Commons. In 1627 he was raised to Baron Poulett in the Peerage of England . Lord Poulett later sided with the royalists in the English Civil War .

He was followed by his son as 2nd baron. He was previously a Member of Parliament for Stamford. During the civil war he was an officer in the royal army.

His son, the 3rd Baron, also represented Somerset in Parliament and served as Lord-Lieutenant of Dorset. He was followed by his son as the 4th baron. He was Commissioner for the Union Treaty with Scotland . In 1706 he was raised to Viscount Hinton and Earl Poulett in the Peerage of England. He also became First Lord of the Treasury and Lord Steward of the Household .

After his death, the title went to his eldest son as 2nd Earl. He had already been appointed to the House of Lords with a Writ of Acceleration on January 17, 1734 during his father's lifetime and had thereby inherited the title of 5th Baron Poulett prematurely. He later became Lord Lieutenant of Somerset. He died unmarried and his brother succeeded him as the third earl. He was previously the MP for Bridgwater in Parliament and was Lord-Lieutenant of Devon.

He was followed by his third son as the fourth earl. This was also Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset. He in turn was followed by his eldest son as the fifth earl.

Since all sons of the 5th Earl died before their father, his nephew William Poulett followed as the 6th Earl. This was the third son of the fourth earl's second son. As a racehorse owner he was very active in obstacle riding.

In 1899 his son from his third marriage followed him as 7th Earl. He was captain of the Royal Horse Artillery in World War I and died of the flu in 1918. He was followed by his only son as the 8th Earl. He was raised by his mother, a former actress, and trained as a railway engineer in Eton. Although married three times, he died childless on March 1, 1973 and all of his titles were void.

Succession dispute

After the 6th Earl died, there was a dispute over his successor. In 1903 William Turnour Thomas Poulett brought an action with the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords that he, and not the son from the third marriage of the 6th Earl, William John Lydston Poulett (* 1883), were entitled to the titles of nobility. The plaintiff was born into wedlock in 1849 to the 6th Earl's first wife, Elizabeth Lavinia Newman, six Mondays after the marriage. However, there was reason to believe that he was not fathered by the 6th Earl. At the latest after the 6th Earl was born in 1883 in his third marriage to William John Lydston Poulett, another legitimate son was born, he had disinherited William Turnour Thomas Poulett. The Committee for Privileges ruled on July 3, 1905, and declared the plaintiff to be an illegitimate son who was not entitled to inheritance. The House of Lords created an exception to the legal principle pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant (the mother's husband is the father of every child born in the marriage).

List of Barons and Earls Poulett

Barons Chicken (1627)

Earl's Chicken (1706)

literature

  • Chicken, Earldom of . In: Debrett's peerage, baronetage, knightage and companionage. Dean & Son, London 1903, p. 664 ( archive.org ).
  • Nicholas Harris Nicolas: A Synopsis of the Peerage of England. Exhibiting, under alphabetical arrangement, the date of creation, descent, and present state of every title of peerage which has existed in this country since the conquest . Rivingtons, London 1825, p. 524 ( books.google.de ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Poulett Peerage , published in House of Lords Debate on July 27, 1903 (Issue 126, Columns 298-299)