question about UK nobility

[steve2470]

Hi, it's me, Steve the curious Anglophile again. I was talking to someone today, and she told me that some barons and baronesses in the UK are not wealthy, because of taxes enacted after World War I. They (the nobility) were not able to maintain their estates because of the taxes. I had always assumed that anyone with a title in the UK, had to be wealthy (a millionaire or more).

Accurate info ? Thanks in advance.

Steve

[Narraback]

1. Here is a story from 2010... "Look who owns Britain: A third of the country STILL belongs to.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328270/A-Britain-STILL-belongs-aristocracy.html

Look who owns Britain: A third of the country STILL belongs to the aristocracy

By Tamara Cohen
Updated: 03:58 EST, 10 November 2010


More than a third of Britain’s land is still in the hands of a tiny group of aristocrats, according to the most extensive ownership survey in nearly 140 years.

In a shock to those who believed the landed gentry were a dying breed, blue-blooded owners still control vast swathes of the country within their inherited estates.

A group of 36,000 individuals – only 0.6 per cent of the population – own 50 per cent of rural land.

SNIP

[steve2470]

5. thanks ! nt

[LeftishBrit]

2. Your friend is right. Most titled people are rich, but not all.

And there could be many reasons why a lord - I assume in this context you're referring to hereditary peers - might not be able to 'live like a lord': failed investments; pathological gambling; 'white elephant' hard-to-maintain estates, which were often teetering on the edge, even before increased postwar taxes sometimes were the final blow. (See Noel Coward's satirical song on the topic: http://www.songlyrics.com/noel-coward/the-stately-homes-of-england-lyrics/)


The National Trust was often the beneficiary of once-very-rich people's inability to continue to maintain their huge estates.


Nowadays, the majority of members of the House of Lords are appointed life-peers, rather than heirs to a title. Though rich hereditary, often titled, landowners are far from an extinct species, even now.

[steve2470]

3. yes, hereditary peers, thanks for the thorough answer ! nt

[No Vested Interest]

4. Haven't I read that impoverished nobility open their homes

to tourists and overnight guests in order to have enough money to stay on?