On 16 January 1934, on MacDonald's initiative, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Elton, of Headington in the County of Oxford. Elton's somewhat controversial elevation to the peerage caused fellow historian Lewis Namier to remark: "In the eighteenth-century peers made their tutors under-secretaries; in the twentieth under-secretaries make their tutors peers" (Malcolm MacDonald was at the time serving as Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs).
This event occurred on 16 January 1934, when MacDonald's proposal led to his elevation to the peerage as Baron Elton, of Headington in Oxfordshire. Fellow historian Lewis Namier observed: "In the past, peers would often appoint their tutors as under-secretaries; now it is under-secretaries who are being appointed as peers" (Malcolm MacDonald was serving as Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs at that time).