Baron Rayleigh, of Terling Place in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom

Peerage of the United Kingdom

The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...

. It was created in 1821 for Lady Charlotte Strutt

Charlotte Strutt, 1st Baroness Rayleigh

Charlotte Mary Gertrude Strutt, 1st Baroness Rayleigh , known as Lady Charlotte FitzGerald from 1758 to 1789 and as Lady Charlotte Strutt from 1789 to 1821, was a British peeress....

, wife of Colonel Joseph Strutt

Joseph Strutt (MP)

Joseph Holden Strutt , was a British soldier and long-standing Member of Parliament.Strutt was the member of a family that had made their fortune from its milling business in Maldon and Chelmsford in Essex and which had acquired the estate of Terling Place in Terling, Essex...

, Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Maldon

Maldon (UK Parliament constituency)

Maldon is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...

 and a member of an Essex family that had made its fortune in the milling business. Joseph Strutt had earlier declined the offer of a peerage, and instead proposed that the honour be given to his wife. Lady Rayleigh was the daughter of James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster

James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster

Lieutenant-General James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, etc. PC , styled Lord Offaly until 1744 and known as The Earl of Kildare between 1744 and 1761 and as The Marquess of Kildare between 1761 and 1766, was an Irish nobleman, soldier and politician.-Background:Leinster was the son of Robert...

, and his wife Lady Emily Lennox

Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster

Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster , known before 1747 as Lady Emily Lennox, from 1747 to 1761 as The Countess of Kildare and from 1761 to 1766 as The Marchioness of Kildare, was the second of the famous Lennox sisters, daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, and illegitimately...

, the second of the famous Lennox sisters. Her elder brother was Charles FitzGerald, 1st Baron Lecale

Charles FitzGerald, 1st Baron Lecale

Rear-Admiral Charles James FitzGerald, 1st Baron Lecale PC , styled Lord Charles FitzGerald between 1761 and 1800, was an Irish naval commander and politician.-Background:...

 and her younger brother was Lord Edward FitzGerald

Lord Edward FitzGerald

Lord Edward FitzGerald was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary. He was the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster , he was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and died of wounds received in resisting arrest on charge of treason.-Early years:FitzGerald spent most of his...

. Lady Rayleigh's grandson, the third Baron, was a noted physicist and Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 recipient. The latter's son, the fourth Baron, was also a well-known physicist. the title is held by the fourth Baron's grandson, the sixth Baron, who succeeded his uncle in 1988.

The family seat is Terling Place

Terling Place

Terling Place is the Georgian family seat of Baron Rayleigh and the largest house in the village of Terling. It was built between 1772 and 1777 to the designs of John Johnson. The wings, a new porch, a two-storey Saloon and a Library were added between 1818 and 1824...

 in Terling

Terling

Terling is a village in the county of Essex, England, between the town of Witham and the villages of Great Leighs and Hatfield Peverel. The village was mentioned in the Domesday book...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

.

Barons Rayleigh (1821)

• Charlotte Mary Gertrude Strutt, 1st Baroness Rayleigh
  Charlotte Strutt, 1st Baroness Rayleigh
  Charlotte Mary Gertrude Strutt, 1st Baroness Rayleigh , known as Lady Charlotte FitzGerald from 1758 to 1789 and as Lady Charlotte Strutt from 1789 to 1821, was a British peeress....
  
   (1758–1836)
• John James Strutt, 2nd Baron Rayleigh (1796–1873)
• John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh
  John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh
  John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, OM was an English physicist who, with William Ramsay, discovered the element argon, an achievement for which he earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1904...
  
   (1842–1919)
• Robert John Strutt, 4th Baron Rayleigh (1875–1947)
• John Arthur Strutt, 5th Baron Rayleigh (1908–1988)
• John Gerald Strutt, 6th Baron Rayleigh (b. 1960)

The heir apparent

Heir apparent

An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....

is the present holder's son the Hon. John Frederick Strutt (b. 1993)