Paulet St John, 8th Baron St John of Bletso

The Rt Hon. Paulet St Andrew St John, 8th Baron St John of Bletso and 5th Baronet (died 1714) was an English peer, and baronet. Andrew St John, his father, was the heir of his second cousin, the 3rd Earl of Bolingbroke; they both died in 1711, but Paulet St. John was born posthumously and succeeded to the Barony (not the Earldom, which had not belonged to the common ancestor) when he was born. He died at the age of three, and was succeeded by his uncle, William St John.

Sources differ in the numbering of the later Barons St. John:

The fourth Baron St. John had been created Earl of Bolingbroke; when the Long Parliament was called, both the aged Earl and his eldest son were summoned, the younger one by a writ of acceleration in his father's subsidiary title of Baron St. John of Bletso. Normally, writs of acceleration ended in the reunion of titles when the father died; but in this case the son (Oliver St John, 5th Baron St John of Bletso) died two years later, fighting for the Parliament at the Battle of Edgehill, and his father died in 1646, and was succeeded by his second son's son.

There is no question that Oliver St. John was Baron St. John of Bletso; he could speak and vote as a Peer of Parliament; but the numbering of the barons chiefly matters to sources, like encyclopedias and genealogies, which distinguish between peers of different generations and they differ; Debrett's and the Complete Peerage reckon Oliver St. John as one of these Baron St. John, but the Barons themselves do not, down to the present Baron St John ignore the writ of acceleration given to Oliver St John (d. October 1642) as does the register of the House of Lords and have therefore accepted Paulet St Andrew St John as the 7th Baron.

References

• Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 13th Ed., Pub 1820.