Talk:William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace

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Is this person "Notable"?[edit]

I fail to see how this man should be included in Wikipedia. He is only notable for the titles he held and who he married. What did he DO that would be worthy of an article in Wikipedia? I do not understand this. 73.6.96.168 (talk) 02:42, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

His wife had nothing to do with his becoming Earl of Lovelace[edit]

As of the date of this my comment, this article begins a sentence with the clause "He was created Viscount Ockham and Earl of Lovelace in 1838 (through his wife Ada),". No he wasn't. It doesn't work that way. If you're a female and marry a male noble, you (typically, Wallis Simpson being atypical as being "Duchess of Windsor but NOT "Her Royal Highness") get his titles and style of address. At some point in the article's subject's life, Queen Victoria felt that he should become an Earl. She could have chosen any name (within the limits of decency and dignity) for the new Earldom. This article's subject could have been created "Earl of Wonderland", as long as nobody else was ALREADY "Earl of Wonderland". The name Victoria chose was "Earldom of Lovelace", and the Queen's choice and only the Queen's choice made it so. His marriage to Ada (1835) had nothing to do with it. He wasn't created Earl until 3 years after the marriage (whereas a woman marrying an Earl becomes a Countess more or less instantaneously), and the Queen was not CONSTRAINED to create him "Earl of Lovelace". Nothing about his marriage to Ada tied the Queen's hands. Now, as it happens, Ada was related to some dead men who had been Baron Lovelace, a title that went extinct when no natural male heirs of the 1st Baron Lovelace existed anymore. But the fact that Ada was descended from some dead Lovelace Barons was of no effect until Queen Victoria chose otherwise for the name of Ada's HUSBAND'S Earldom. The Queen simply chose "Lovelace". If the Queen had chosen "Wonderland" instead, then Ada would be known as the Countess of Wonderland instead of the Countess of Lovelace, because her only titles were her husband's. Nothing was transmitted from the Barons Lovelace to Ada to her husband. Her husband's Earldom of Lovelace and her relatives' Barony of Lovelace are not related to each other except for having, by the arbitrary and capricious whim of Queen Victoria, the same name. See also the 1st Duke of Sutherland, who was married to a Countess of Sutherland, for another example of a man who does NOT get his wife's title by being married to her, even though a woman WOULD get her husband's title by being married to him. Right now, the Duke of Sutherland and the Earl of Sutherland are two different people, because the Dukedom and the Earldom are two ENTIRELY separate things, despite having the same name and once having been held by a husband (the Dukedom) and wife (the Earldom of which she was Countess, that being a female Earl), and also both titles having been held by the same male at times.2600:8804:8800:11F:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 06:23, 18 January 2022 (UTC)Christopher Lawrence Simpson[reply]