Titles Deprivation Act
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| Long title | An Act to deprive Enemy Peers and Princes of British Dignities and Titles. |
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| Citation | 7 & 8 Geo. 5 c. 47 |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 8 November 1917 |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
The Titles Deprivation Act 1917 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which authorised enemies of the United Kingdom during the First World War to be deprived of their British peerages and royal titles.
The British Royal Family was closely related to many of the royal and princely families of Germany. In particular, the 1837 accession of Queen Victoria had caused the Kingdom of Hanover, which had been in personal union with the British crown for over a century, to pass to her uncle the Duke of Cumberland and his descendants, who simultaneously retained his British titles and princely rank. Similarly, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose German titles passed eventually to the descendants of their youngest son Leopold, Duke of Albany. Thus, during World War I, both Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover were British princes and dukes, even while they were also officers in the German Army (as was the latter's son, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, who also held British princely rank).
In Parliament, beginning on 18 November 1914, Swift MacNeill, a Protestant Irish Nationalist and constitutional scholar who served as Member of Parliament for South Donegal, condemned the Dukes of Albany and Cumberland as traitors and demanded to know "what steps will be taken to secure that [they] shall no longer retain United Kingdom peerages and titles and a seat in the House of Lords." Despite meeting resistance from Prime Ministers Asquith and Lloyd George, MacNeil continued his campaign until losing his seat after the 1918 election. After MacNeill lost his seat,Horatio Bottomley, Member for Hackney South, took up the charge.
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