Baron Hume of Berwick is a title which has been created twice in the Peerages of England and Great Britain.

First creation

The title was first created as Baron Hume of Berwick in the Peerage of England

Peerage of England

The Peerage of England comprises all peerages created in the Kingdom of England before the Act of Union in 1707. In that year, the Peerages of England and Scotland were replaced by one Peerage of Great Britain....

 on 7 July 1604, for George Home

George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar

George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar, KG, PC was, in the last decade of his life, the most prominent and most influential Scotsman in England. His work lay in the King's Household and in the control of the State Affairs of Scotland and he was the King's chief Scottish advisor...

, Lord Treasurer of Scotland

Treasurer of Scotland

The Treasurer was a senior post in the pre-Union government of Scotland, the Privy Council of Scotland.The full title of the post was Lord High Treasurer, Comptroller, Collector-General and Treasurer of the New Augmentation, formed as it was from the amalgamation of four earlier offices...

, member of the English Privy Council

Privy council

A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...

, and Keeper of the Great Wardrobe. (In 1605 he was further created Earl of Dunbar

Earl of Dunbar

The title Earl of Dunbar, also called Earl of Lothian or Earl of March, was the head of a comital lordship in south-eastern Scotland between the early 12th century and the early 15th century. The first man to use the title of Earl in this earldom was Gospatric II, Earl of Lothian, son of Gospatric,...

).

Most sources cite the title as being extinct. However, the 2003 edition of Debretts gives an opposing view when it states: "The Lordship of Home (or Hume) of Berwick, cr by patent 1604 upon George Home... with remainder to his heirs for ever, is held to have descended to the Earls of Home

Earl of Home

The title Earl of Home was created in 1605 in the Peerage of Scotland for Alexander Home of that Ilk, who was already the 6th Lord Home.The Earl of Home holds the subsidiary titles of Lord Home , and Lord Dunglass , in the Peerage of Scotland; and Baron Douglas, of Douglas in the County of Lanark ...

 through lady Anna Home".

The question of the continued existence of the title came to the fore again in 1963 when the Prime Minister, Alec Douglas-Home

Alec Douglas-Home

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...

, 14th Earl of Home, was required to renounce all of his peerages under the new Peerage Act 1963

Peerage Act 1963

The Peerage Act 1963 is the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permitted peeresses in their own right and all Scottish hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, and which allows newly inherited hereditary peerages to be "disclaimed".-Background:The Act resulted largely from the...

, in order to sit in the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

. Douglas-Home signed the historic 'Instrument of Disclaimer' on 23 October 1963, in which this peerage was inserted, along with all of his other peerages. Upon his death in 1995, his son, David Douglas-Home, 15th Earl of Home

David Douglas-Home, 15th Earl of Home

David Alexander Cospatrick Douglas-Home, 15th Earl of Home, CVO, CBE is a Scottish peer, the only son of former Conservative Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home...

, resumed his father's disclaimed titles. It is said that he maintains a claim to the title of Lord Hume of Berwick, but no such claim has as yet been placed before the Crown.

Debretts, out of step with all other authorities, also state this peerage is more likely to belong to the Peerage of Scotland

Peerage of Scotland

The Peerage of Scotland is the division of the British Peerage for those peers created in the Kingdom of Scotland before 1707. With that year's Act of Union, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England were combined into the Kingdom of Great Britain, and a new Peerage of Great Britain was...

 given its suggested unusual remainder. To circumvent this uncertainty with relation to Douglas-Home's disclaimer, the Lord Chancellor's office listed both "The Lordship of Hume of Berwick in the peerage of Scotland" and "The Barony of Hume in the Peerage of England" in the instrument of disclaimer, an obvious anomaly.

Second creation

On 14 May 1776, Alexander Hume-Campbell, Lord Polwarth, son and heir of Hugh, 3rd Earl of Marchmont, was created Baron Hume of Berwick, in the Peerage of Great Britain, but the title became extinct when he died without issue.