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
Frederick Augustus Berkeley, 5th Earl of Berkeley Berkeley Castle upon their eldest son, William Fitz Hardinge Berkeley, but William’s attempt to assume his father’s honours were disallowed by the House of Lords. It appears that Berkeley’s titles devolved as a matter of law upon his fifth son, Thomas Morton Fitzhardinge Berkeley (1796-1882), but were never used by him. Frederick Augustus Berkeley, 5th Earl of Berkeley Frederick Augustus Berkeley, 5th Earl of Berkeley (1745–1810) was a British nobleman. Berkeley was the eldest son and heir of Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley by Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Drax, of Ellerton Abbey, Yorkshire. He succeeded his father in the