Berkeley family Berkeley family The Berkeley family is an aristocratic English family, nearly unique in English history in that it has to this day an unbroken male line of descent from a noble Saxon ancestor before the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and also retains possession of much of the lands it held from the 11th and 12th centuries, centred on Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire, which still belongs to the family. The Berkeley family descends in the male line from Robert Fitzharding (d.1170), 1st feudal baron of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, reputedly the son of Harding of Bristol, the son of Eadnoth the
Baron Berkeley that the barony by writ was deemed, extraordinarily, to be in effect a feudal barony (or barony by tenure), dependent on the tenure of Berkeley Castle. Thus when William Berkeley, 1st Marquess of Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley (1426–1492), "William the Waste-All", alienated Berkeley Castle to the king, he effectively disinherited his younger brother from the barony by writ. The heir apparent is his son the Hon. Thomas FitzHardinge Gueterbock (b. 1969) The Earldom of Berkeley, together with the Viscountcy Dursley, was separated from the barony in 1882, but the accession was not fully established. In 1942 both titles became extinct