How is a Scottish baron named in public life? By title, by name, or by designation

Which form appears depends on the record in front of the clerk, and on what it was given. The title is the same in all three.

The short answer

• By title, where the record has room for it. A Norfolk borough council listed a member from 2015 as “Councillor Baron Chenery of Horsbrugh”, one line from “Councillor Lord Howard”, a peer. The Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2005 made “Robert Brown Gillespie, Baron of Blackhall” an OBE.
• By name, where it has none. The county council’s papers call the same man “Cllr Michael Chenery of Horsbrugh”.
• By designation on the ballot paper, which strips every title. Sir Keir Starmer stood in 2024 as “Starmer, Keir”. The baron stood as “CHENERY OF HORSBRUGH, Michael John Baylis”: the designation the Lord Lyon recognised is his surname.
• A title and its use are two things. The title is the holder’s in law. No one can be compelled to use it, at home or abroad, and the holder chooses the form he gives. The Lord Lyon stands apart: he is the Crown’s officer, and others follow him.

One man, three records

Michael Chenery of Horsbrugh, Baron of Horsbrugh, recognised by the Lord Lyon in 1995, sat on a Norfolk borough council and on Norfolk County Council for most of forty years, and died in June 2026.¹ The borough’s record carried the title: “Councillor Baron Chenery of Horsbrugh” on its councillor page in 2015 and 2016, and in its attendance record of 10 May 2018, beside “Councillor Lord Howard”.² The county’s did not: the Norfolk Records Committee, which he chaired, has “Cllr Michael Chenery of Horsbrugh (Chair)”.³ The ballot paper used neither: the nomination papers of 2017, 2023 and 2026 print “CHENERY OF HORSBRUGH, Michael John Baylis”.⁴

The ballot paper strips every title

A nomination paper asks for full names, and the returning officers’ forms say what that excludes: “Prefixes like Sir, or suffixes like Snr, must not be used”; “Titles will not appear on the ballot paper or other notices.”⁵ The rule is the same for a knight: Sir Keir Starmer, KCB since 2014, stood in July 2024 as “Starmer, Keir”.⁶ What survives is the name, and a baron’s name carries his designation.⁷

A name and a title

A title of nobility is part of its holder’s name and identity. The passport’s two fields may, at the holder’s option, take the title in the surname field, with the full name in the observations; a legal contract gives the whole, “THE MOST NOBLE TORQUHIL IAN CAMPBELL, Thirteenth Duke of Argyll, Marquess of Kintyre and Lorne etc”.⁸

Someone may legally own a barony, but no one, person or organisation, can be compelled to recognise it or to address the holder by it. Others, the Roll included, remain free to recognise the title or not, and to address its holder in any courteous manner they choose. A peer stands in the same place. The Crown made David Cameron “BARON CAMERON OF CHIPPING NORTON” in 2023; the Government’s own pages then called him both “Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron” and “British Foreign Secretary David Cameron”.⁹ Some will use a title as a courtesy, some will not know the form, and a digital system may have no way to bend.

The Lord Lyon is another matter. He is the Crown’s officer in Scotland, appointed on the First Minister’s recommendation, and his court is “Scotland’s Heraldic Authority”.¹⁰ Others take their lead from him: HM Passport Office includes a title on “evidence that the Lord Lyon has recognised their feudal barony”, the Scottish Register of Tartans keeps its Clan/Family category for clans and families “as recognised by the Court of the Lord Lyon”, and the surname he recognises is the one on the ballot paper. So his is no private courtesy. If the Lord Lyon declines to recognise a title, the others have nothing to follow, and recognition suffers everywhere.

Abroad

Each state draws its own line. Germany keeps an old title only as part of a name, Italy only the territorial predicate, and Poland’s Constitution of 1921 recognised none.¹¹ Austria abolished its nobility in 1919, down to the “von”, and the ban covers titles from abroad. An Austrian citizen adopted in Germany carried “Fürstin von Sayn-Wittgenstein” on her German driving licence and her Austrian passport; Vienna struck out “Fürstin von”, and in 2010 the European Court of Justice held that EU law allowed it.¹² A German citizen took a name with “Graf” and “Freiherr” in it by deed poll in London and carried it on his British passport; in 2016 the same Court held that Germany was “not bound to recognise” it, if refusal was needed to keep its citizens equal before the law.¹³

Ireland shows the two things apart. Its Constitution confers no titles of nobility, and an Irish passport carries no “Sir”, “Lord” or “Baron”; yet when the 8th Marquess Conyngham, an Anglo-Irish peer, was buried at Slane in June 2025, the President’s aide-de-camp and the Tánaiste attended.¹⁴ The law gave the title nothing; courtesy gave it the State at the graveside.

The peer’s option

Hugh Peskett’s conclusion on the Act of 2000, that it “places baronies in the same class as peerages”, has a consequence for the record.¹⁵ A peer is known by his title alone: “Councillor Lord Howard” in the borough’s list, “Argyll” at the foot of a contract. Scots conveyancing settled that long ago: “A peer subscribes simply by his title.”¹⁶ A dignity of the same class carries the same option, and a baron has the form ready: “the Baron of Inverness”, or “Inverness” alone.¹⁷

The history shows what happens when the option is withheld. The Act of 1672 allowed only peers and bishops to sign by their titles; the Commons after 1707 had only “Esquire” and “Mr.” for a baron; and the Lyon Court’s own note records that the style of “Baron” then “gradually fell into desuetude”.¹⁸ A title kept out of the record falls out of use.

Where the record has room, the title appears

The Crown has used it in the honours list: “Robert Brown Gillespie, Baron of Blackhall”, OBE, 2005.¹⁹ The Scottish Parliament has room for the designation: in May 2026 a member was sworn as “Alexander James Amherst Burnett of Leys”.²⁰

More often the Crown’s instruments carry the name alone. The 24th Baron of Drum was commissioned a Deputy Lieutenant in 1961 as “Henry Quentin Forbes Irvine of Drum Castle”, and the Baron of Ochtercoull in 1989 as “James Malcolm Marcus Humphrey of Dinnet”. The heir’s style is printed too: in 1986 the heir of the Chief of Clan Cameron, whose family holds the barony of Lochiel, was commissioned as “Donald Cameron, Younger of Lochiel”. No Deputy Lieutenant’s commission in the Gazette since 1945 has carried “Baron of X”.²¹

A territorial designation is part of a name, not a dignity: about four in five of those on the Lord Lyon’s rolls belong to lairds who are not barons. Many baronial families have used the name alone since the Union and have no tradition of using the title. It is theirs nonetheless.

Where a record has no line for a dignity, the dignity drops out and the Lyon Court’s record carries it: “Sir Nicholas Fairbairn” in the Commons’ database and “Baron of Fordell” in Hansard’s; “Boot, Geoffrey George” in Tynwald’s list and “Boot, Baron of Waughton” in the Lyon’s.²² None of these records shows a refusal. They show a form with no line for a dignity, and one record, the borough’s, that was given the title and printed it.

For the Commons, see Did Scottish barons sit in the House of Commons?

The Roll and the Pledge

A family with no tradition of using its title needs two things, precedent and evidence. These papers give the precedent. The Baronage of Scotland Association keeps the Roll of Scottish Barons, which enters a holder only on evidence, and offers the Pledge: an undertaking, in honour and not in law, to preserve a barony within the family for future generations and to uphold the Baronial Code of Honour. The model is the baronets’ Roll of 1910.