Buckingham Palace announced today that, as was widely expected, the Earl of Wessex will be created Duke of Edinburgh. However, the title will apparently be granted for life only, which is unusual by modern standards.
Aside from some isolated creations of life peerages in the medieval and early modern periods,[1] the English (and later British) peerage was overwhelmingly hereditary until the latter half of the 20th century. However, the emphasis on heredity made it difficult to inject fresh talent into the House of Lords since ministers were reluctant to ennoble someone unless his family could maintain the social standards of the peerage for generations to come.[2]
Matters reached a head in the mid-19th century. The House of Lords desperately needed peers with legal training to help with its judicial work, and in 1856, the Government advised Queen Victoria to confer a barony for life upon the jurist…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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