The Lord Great Chamberlain of England^[1] is the sixth of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Privy Seal but above the Lord High Constable. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain is an ancient one, being first created circa 1126 in Norman times and in continuous existence since 1138. The incumbent is Rupert Carington, 7th Baron Carrington.

The Lord Great Chamberlain is entrusted by the Sovereign with custody of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament, and serves as his or her representative therein.^[2] The Lord Great Chamberlain enjoys plenary jurisdiction in those precincts of the Palace of Westminster not assigned to either the House of Lords or the House of Commons, namely, the Royal Apartments and Central Lobby. To this end, the Lord Great Chamberlain is responsible for the use, preservation, and occupation of such spaces.^{[lower-alpha 1]} In addition, the Lord Great Chamberlain is one of three commissioners which exercise control and maintenance over Westminster Hall and the Crypt Chapel; the other commissioners are the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords and the Speaker of the House of Commons, respectively.^[4]

The Lord Great Chamberlain performs other less routine functions as custodian of the Palace of Westminster. For example, the Lord Great Chamberlain introduces peers and bishops to the House of Lords, accompanied by Black Rod, and welcomes foreign heads of state visiting the Palace of Westminster. Likewise, the Lord Great Chamberlain is responsible for attending upon the Sovereign whenever he or she is present at the parliamentary estate. In the latter case, the Lord Great Chamberlain is authorized to make any administrative arrangements necessary for delivery of services required by the Sovereign.^[5][6]

However, the Lord Great Chamberlain’s most publicly visible parliamentary role, in practice, is participating in state openings of Parliament. To this end, the Lord Great Chamberlain receives the Sovereign at Norman Porch, enrobes him or her with the Robe of State and the Imperial State Crown in the Robing Room, and leads the Sovereign’s procession through the Royal Gallery and the Prince's Chamber into the Lords Chamber.^[7] It is also the Lord Great Chamberlain who, upon the command of the Sovereign, directs Black Rod to summon members of the House of Commons to attend the House of Lords for the purpose of hearing the speech from the throne.^[8]

Parliamentary responsibilities aside, the Lord Great Chamberlain also has a major part to play in royal coronations, having the right to dress the monarch on coronation day and to serve the monarch water before and after the coronation banquet. Likewise, the Lord Great Chamberlain invests the monarch with the insignia of rule during the coronation service.^[9][10] On state occasions like coronations, the Lord Great Chamberlain wears a distinctive scarlet court uniform and bears a gold key and a white staff as the insignia of his office.^[11]

The office of Lord Great Chamberlain is distinct from the non-hereditary office of Lord Chamberlain of the Household, a position in the monarch's household. This office arose in the 14th century as a deputy of the Lord Great Chamberlain to fulfil the latter's duties in the Royal Household, but now they are quite distinct.

The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, but the Act provided that a hereditary peer exercising the office of Lord Great Chamberlain (as well as the Earl Marshal) be exempt from such a rule, in order to perform ceremonial functions.

The position is a hereditary one, held since 1780 in gross. At any one time, a single person actually exercises the office of Lord Great Chamberlain. The various individuals who hold fractions of the office are properly each Joint Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain. They choose one individual of the rank of a knight or higher to be the Deputy Lord Great Chamberlain.^[12][13] Under an agreement made in 1912, the right to exercise the office for a given reign rotates among three families (of the then three joint office holders) in proportion to the fraction of the office held. For instance, the Marquesses of Cholmondeley hold one-half of the office, and may therefore exercise the office or appoint a deputy every alternate reign. Whenever one of the three shares of the 1912 agreement is split further, the joint heirs of this share have to agree among each other, who should be their deputy or any mechanism to determine who of them has the right to choose a deputy.

The office was originally held by Robert Malet, a son of one of the leading companions of William the Conqueror. In 1133, however, King Henry I declared Malet's estates and titles forfeit, and awarded the office of Lord Great Chamberlain to Aubrey de Vere, whose son was created Earl of Oxford. Thereafter, the Earls of Oxford held the title almost continuously until 1526, with a few intermissions due to the forfeiture of some Earls for treason. In 1526, however, the fourteenth Earl of Oxford died, leaving his aunts as his heirs. The earldom was inherited by a more distant heir-male, his second cousin. The Sovereign (at that time Henry VIII) then decreed that the office belonged to the Crown, and was not transmitted along with the earldom. The Sovereign appointed the fifteenth Earl to the office, but the appointment was deemed for life and was not hereditary. The family's association with the office was interrupted in 1540, when the fifteenth earl died and Thomas Cromwell, the King's chief adviser, was appointed Lord Great Chamberlain.^[14] After Cromwell's attainder and execution later the same year, the office passed through a few more court figures, until 1553, when it was passed back to the De Vere family, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, again as an uninheritable life appointment.^[15] Later, Queen Mary I ruled that the Earls of Oxford were indeed entitled to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain on an hereditary basis.

Thus, the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth Earls of Oxford held the position on a hereditary basis until 1626, when the eighteenth Earl died, again leaving a distant relative as heir male, but a closer one as a female heir. The House of Lords eventually ruled that the office belonged to the heir general, Robert Bertie, 14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, who later became Earl of Lindsey. The office remained vested in the Earls of Lindsey, who later became Dukes of Ancaster and Kesteven.

In 1779, however, the fourth Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven died, leaving two sisters as female heirs, and an uncle as an heir male. The uncle became the fifth and last Duke, but the House of Lords ruled that the two sisters were jointly Lord Great Chamberlain and could appoint a Deputy to fulfil the functions of the office. The barony of Willoughby de Eresby went into abeyance between the two sisters, but the Sovereign terminated the abeyance and granted the title to the elder sister, Priscilla Bertie, 21st Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain, however, was divided between Priscilla and her younger sister Georgiana. Priscilla's share was eventually split between two of her granddaughters, and has been split several more times since then. By contrast, Georgiana's share has been inherited by a single male heir each time; that individual has in each case been the Marquess of Cholmondeley, a title created for Georgiana's husband.

The fractions show the holder's share in the office, and the date they held it. The current (as of 2022^[update]) holders of the office are shown in bold face.