Viscount Hereford

A carte-de-visite portrait of Robert Devereux (1843–1930), 16th Viscount Hereford.

Viscount Hereford is the oldest extant viscountcy in the Peerage of England, making the holder the Premier Viscount of England.

According to his obituary in The Times (28 March 1930):

'Viscount Hereford, the premier Viscount of England, died in a London nursing home yesterday after a long illness at the age of 87. His term as "Father" of the House of Lords, which began on the recent death of the Earl of Coventry, thus only lasted a few days. The late peer, whose viscountcy was created in 1549, was the head of the historic house of Devereux, to which belonged Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the second Earl of Essex, who was also Viscount Hereford. Robert Devereux was born on January 3, 1843, the eldest son of the 15th peer, who was an hon. canon of Durham. He went to Eton in 1852 [...] Before he left Eton he succeeded his father in August 1855, being then 12 years old, and had thus been a peer for 74 years and seven months. From Eton he passed into Sandhurst. He was a J.P. and D.L. for Breconshire, a J.P. for Herefordshire and Radnor, and formerly a county alderman for Monmouthshire. He married in 1863 the Hon. Mary Anne Morgan, youngest daughter of the first Lord Tredegar and sister of the Crimean veteran who was present at the charge of the Light Brigade. She died in August 1924. Lord Hereford, who leaves three daughters, is succeeded by his only son, the Hon. Robert Charles Devereux.'

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 27 May 1863.