Chris Gray has a bone to pick with some national newspapers

Stored in our library at Newspaper House, for the instruction of anyone who might need it, is a handy paperback published by A&C Black called Titles and Forms of Address: A Guide to Correct Use. Might I suggest at this time of present-giving that one such volume could usefully be bought for the offices of some of our national newspapers. Amazon has one available second-hand for 1p (which possibly reflects the value people now feel for the subject).

Almost certainly handbooks of this kind are available for the reporters and sub-editors on The Times and Daily Telegraph; but no one there appears to read them.

Both of these publications got into a terrible maul last week in describing the messy marital affairs of the Duke of Beaufort’s younger son and his wife.

They are Lord Edward Somerset and Lady Edward Somerset. They were, however, repeatedly referred to as ‘Lord and Lady Somerset’ in the reports on Tuesday of the former’s guilty plea in court to a charge of domestic violence.

I think it highly unlikely that this error was not brought to the attention of the newspapers. And yet the following day, in a background feature in the Daily Telegraph, Judith Woods alluded once more, over and over again, to ‘Lord and Lady Somerset’.

Had she taken the trouble to consult Titles and Forms of Address she would have found the matter admirably summed up under the heading ‘Daughters and Younger Sons of Dukes’.

“The younger sons of a duke,” it says, “bear the title ‘Lord’ with their christian and family names. In this category, the commonest mistakes are made by those who do not know the distinctions between the sorts of people who are entitled to be called ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady’. Lord John Smith must never be called Lord Smith, nor Lady Barbara Smith Lady Smith. When the full titles are not used they are called Lord John and Lady Barbara. There is no other abbreviation unless one is on such terms of intimacy as to use their forenames alone.”

Under the heading ‘Wives of Younger Sons of Dukes’ the following appears: “The mistake already alluded to in this category is made most often in the case of wives of younger sons of dukes and marquesses. The wife of Lord John Smith is Lady John Smith and never in any circumstances Lady Smith. She is known less formally as Lady John. This rule is varied only when she is of higher rank than her husband, in which case her own forename is substituted for his.”

Pretty clear, eh?

It does not take a great mental effort to work out why the ‘Lady Somerset’ mistake is made. It is because the name ‘Lady Edward’, applied to a woman, seems somehow wrong.

It does so, I would suggest, largely because of the unfamiliarity of the styling, there being comparatively few people entitled to this form of address. This arises as a consequence of an instance of sexual inequality that goes unrecognised by many.

Names like Lady Antonia Fraser, Lady Lucinda Lampton and Lady Louise Windsor have made us familiar with the notion of the title of ‘lady’ followed by a christian name. This is because all of them are daughters of earls, hundreds of whom exist in the peerage. Sons of earls, however, are treated differently.

Again quoting from Titles and Forms of Address: “Unlike the higher grades of the peerage [marquesses and dukes] younger sons of earls are styled Honourable with their forenames and family names (not initials), and there is nothing to distinguish them from the sons of viscounts and barons.”

Readers might be forgiven for wondering why all this matters. I feel some sympathy with his view.

My own attitude to titles is that it would be altogether conducive to the common good if the whole daft business were dispensed with. But if we are to persist with them, surely we should get them right. If such an organ of record as The Times can’t manage this, then this is a powerful argument for their abolition.

Some people are probably wondering, incidentally, why I take such an interest in this matter. Principally, this is because it was instilled on me during my journalistic training that accuracy over names was necessary.

I did not need, by the way, to master the principles by a close study of Titles and Forms of Address. The necessary information was picked up subliminally over the years by the reading of books by such writers as Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray and Anthony Trollope. The many titles in these are always accurately applied. So, too, in a somewhat lighter vein, are those in the books of P.G. Wodehouse, including the ones about Clarence Threepwood, the ninth Earl of Emsworth.