CHILTERN - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CHILTERNAuthored

The Law Mind • 705 words

Definition

Chiltern, in legal usage, refers almost exclusively to the Chiltern Hundreds — a nominal Crown stewardship in England whose acceptance by a sitting Member of Parliament operates as a formal mechanism for resignation from the House of Commons. Because Members of Parliament cannot directly resign their seats under longstanding parliamentary convention, acceptance of a paid office of profit under the Crown disqualifies the holder from continuing to sit. The Chiltern Hundreds (formally, the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham) is one of two such offices kept in existence solely for this purpose, the other being the Manor of Northstead. The office carries no real duties and a nominal salary; its sole function is to trigger disqualification and thereby effect resignation.

As a standalone legal term, Chiltern has no independent doctrinal content. Its legal significance derives entirely from its role in the Chiltern Hundreds convention.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The Chiltern Hills, a chalk escarpment across several English counties; also a former local government district in Buckinghamshire, abolished in 2020; and a town in Victoria, Australia.

Historical common usage: The term historically referenced the geographic region — the hills and the hundreds (administrative subdivisions) associated with them — without any necessary legal or parliamentary connotation.

Editorial note: The gap between common and legal meaning is significant. In ordinary usage, Chiltern is geographic. In legal and parliamentary usage, it is procedural — a shorthand for a resignation mechanism unique to the British constitution. A researcher encountering "applied for the Chiltern Hundreds" or simply "accepted Chiltern" in a parliamentary or legal source should read it as a resignation event, not a reference to geography or local government.

Common Confusion

Chiltern is sometimes loosely used as though it were itself an office or a legal doctrine. It is neither. The office is the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds; "Chiltern" alone is a geographic ellipsis that, in parliamentary shorthand, has come to stand for the whole phrase. Researchers should not treat "Chiltern" and "Chiltern Hundreds" as distinct legal concepts — they are the same reference.

Why It Matters in Research

Researchers working in British constitutional history, parliamentary procedure, or biographical sources on Members of Parliament will encounter this term as a marker of resignation events. Primary sources from the eighteenth century onward may note simply that a member "applied for the Chilterns" or "accepted Chiltern" without further explanation; understanding that this signals a voluntary departure from the Commons is essential to correctly reading parliamentary records, election histories, and political biographies.

The term does not appear in American legal sources except in comparative constitutional discussions. It carries no doctrinal weight in any common law jurisdiction outside the United Kingdom. Researchers using Law Mind sources focused on American law should treat encounters with this term as pointing to British parliamentary procedure rather than to any transferable legal principle.

No meaningful evolution in legal meaning has occurred. The Chiltern Hundreds mechanism is essentially unchanged since the eighteenth century, though the specific hundreds named have shifted over time and the office was formally codified by statute. The geographic region and the parliamentary device have traveled separately in the sources, and conflation in historical texts is common.

Historical Dictionary Support

Rapalje & Lawrence do not carry a dedicated entry for Chiltern or Chiltern Hundreds. The adjacent entry for CHILDREN in that source is a case-citation index relating to the construction of "children" in statutes of distribution and wills — an entirely separate matter. No synthesis across shelf sources is possible from the supplied materials. The absence of the term from American legal dictionaries of the Rapalje & Lawrence generation is itself informative: the concept had no purchase in American legal practice and was not considered part of the common law vocabulary being codified for American practitioners.

Jurisdictional Note

Chiltern Hundreds is exclusively a feature of United Kingdom parliamentary law. It has no equivalent mechanism in American, Canadian, Australian, or other common law legislatures, most of which permit direct resignation from legislative office by written notice.

CHILTERNmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

(205) CHILDREN, (in (in statute of distribution). 4 Pick. (Mass.) 95; 1 Edw. N. Y.) 43; 79 Ν. Υ. 246; 2 Bay (S. C.) 293. (in statute of wills). 5 Biss. (U.S.) 166. (in a will). 22 La. Ann. 343; 3 Barb. (N. Y.) 385; 3 Barb. (N. Y.) Ch. 475; 1 Edw. (N. Y.) 174; Id. 354; 7 Paige (N. Y.) 332;2 Id. 11; 3 N. Y. 538; 37 Id. 42; 78 N. Y. 275; 19 Ohio St. 30; 2 So. Car. 510; 1 Hen. & M. (Va.) 289; 3 Munf. (Va.) 20; 5 Id. 440; 19 Gratt. (Va.) 130, 328; 2 Am. Rep. 369; 2 Atk. 220; 1 Barn. & Ad. 324; L. R. 10 C. P. 701; 4 Ch. D. 600; L. R. 6 H. L. 265; 7 Id. 568; 2 Vern. 545; 5 Ves. 136; Willes 352. (when take per capita). 10 Ves. 166, 176; 13 Id. 339. (when take per stirpes). 2 Vern. 50. (when includes "after-born children"). 25 Ga. 549; 11 Gill & J. (Md.) 185; 4 Heisk. (Tenn.) 293; 2 Vern. 105; 1 Taunt. 296. (when excludes "after-born children"). 5 Paige (N. Y.) 172; 3 Munf. (Va.) 20. (when includes "posthumous children"). 4 Kent Com. (12 edit.) 413; 5 Burr. 2703; 2 Meriv. 382; 2 Ves. 673; 8 Com. Dig. 470. (when includes "grandchildren"). 19 How. (U. S.) 355; 3 Wall. Jr. (U. S.) 32; 3 Port. (Ala.) 452; 25 Ga. 549; 9 B. Mon. (Ky.) 204; 12 Id. 121;7 Bush (Ky.) 645; 9 Dana (Ky.) 1; 4 Litt. (Ky.) 349; 2 Metc. (Ky.) 466, 469; 4 Id. 340; 2 McCart. (N. J.) 194; 1 Edw. (Ν. Υ.) 354; 7 Paige (N. Y.) 328; 4 Ired. (N. C.) Eq. 102; 5 Id. 421; 6 Jones (N. C.) Eq. 365; 2 So. Car. 510; 1 Coldw. (Tenn.) 253; 4 Ves. 437, 692, 698; 3 Ves. & Β. 59, 69. (when does not include "grandchildren"). 36 Ala. 594; 30 Ga. 167; 7 Bush (Ky.) 644; 4 Metc. (Ky.) 339; 29 Md. 443, 458; 6 C. E. Gr. (N. J.) 84; 2 Bradf. (N. Y.) 172; 1 Edw. (Ν. Υ.) 174; 84 N. Y. 520; 7 Paige (N. Y.) 328; Phil. (N. C.) Eq. 160; 88 Pa. St. 478; 3 Phil. (Pa.) 438; 4 Watts (Pa.) 82; 2 Whart. (Pa.) 376; 8 R. I. 69; L. R. 9 Q. B. 254; 2 Vern. 107; 10 Ves. 195, 200. (when includes "illegitimates"). 5 Biss. (U.S.) 166; 5 Conn. 228; 42 Id. 491, 495; 1 McCart. (N. J.) 159; 16 Hun (N. Y.) 143, 151; 20 Id. 70, 71; 2 Paige (N. Y.) 11; 5 Wheel. Am. C. L. 325; 1 Madd. Ch. 431; 2 Meriv. 421. (when does not include "illegitimates"). 2 Gray (Mass.) 535; 8 Miss. 107; 3 Barb. (N. Y.) Ch. 466; 2 Paige (N. Y.) 13; 9 Id. 81; 1 Bail. (S. C.) Eq. 351; 1 Chit. Gen. Pr. 62; 1 Russ. & M. 581; 1 Turn. & R. 313, 314; 5 Ves. 530; 7 Id. 453, 458; 17 Id. 528; 18 Id. 288. (when does not include "step-children"). 1 Bradf. (N. Y.) 252; 1 Edw. (N. Y.) 41;8 Paige (N. Y.) 375; 23 Wend. (N. Y.) 513. CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN, (take per capita). 1 P. Wms. 342. Ves. 421. (take under a devise to "issue"). 3 (does not include "great-grandchildren"). 3 Ves. & B. 59. To the contrary, 5 Binn. (Pa.) 601. CHILDREN AND ISSUE, (in statute of descent). 2 Bush (Ky.) 157. CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN, (in a will, are words of limitation). 16 East 399. CHILDREN AND THEIR HEIRS, (includes "grandchild"). 2 Yeates (Pa.) 414. CHILDREN BORN OF HER BODY, (words of purchase, in a will). 3 Pick. (Mass.) 363. CHILDREN, FOR DEFAULT OF SUCH, (means for default of such issue). 3 T. R. 484, 493. CHILDREN FOR EVER, (in a devise, used in the sense of heirs). 8 Bush (Ky.) 434. CHILDREN, GRAND, (a posthumous grandchild entitled to take under a devise to). 5 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 38. CHILDREN, IN CASE THEY LEAVE NO, (in will, construed). 1 Barn. & Ad. 324. CHILDREN, ISSUE, HEIRS OF THE BODY, (distinguished). 10 Mod. 370, 376. CHILDREN, LEGITIMATE, (in a will). 16 Ves. 413. CHILDREN, MY, (in a will). 1 Swanst. 195, 198. CHILDREN OF A., (under will, who are). 6 Johns. (N. Y.) 185; 4 Paige (N. Y.) 53; 3 Wend. (N. Y.) 503; 5 Serg. & R. (Pa.) 38; 14 Ves. 576. CHILDREN OF A.'S BODY, (in a will). 2 Atk. 220. CHILDREN OF PERSONS DULY NATURALIZED, (in a statute). 2 Kent Com. (12 edit.) 51. (in a will). 10 Ves. 166. CHILDREN OR CHILD, (synonymous with "issue"). 1 Barn. & Ald. 713; 2 Sim. 319. CHILDREN OR ISSUE, (in a will). 4 Ch. D. 61. CHILDREN OR THEIR ISSUE, (in a will). 5 Ch. D. 494, 622. CHILDREN'S CHILDREN, (in a will). 5 Ch. D. 183. CHILDREN THEN LIVING, (in a will). 4 Ves. 693. CHILDREN, TO A. AND HIS, (in a devise). 4 Paige (N. Y.) 293. CHILDREN, TO THE THREE, OF A., (four children, all born before the date of the will, entitled to take). 19 Ves. 125. CHILDREN WHICH I MAY HAVE BY A., LIVING AT MY DECEASE, (natural children who had acquired the reputation of being his children, take). 1 Ves. & B. 422. CHILDREN WHO SHALL ATTAIN TWENTY-ONE, (in a will). L. R. 10 Ch. D. 25. CHILDREN, YOUNGER, (in marriage settlement). 2 Atk. 457. CHILDWIT, or CHILDWITE. -A fine or penalty of a bond-woman unlawfully begotten with child.-Cowell. CHILTERN HUNDREDS.-A member of the House of Commons cannot resign his seat. He may, however, become disqualified by acceptance of office of profit under the crown. A member, therefore, usually vacates his seat by the acceptance of the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, or some other nominal office in the gift of the chancellor of the exchequer. The practice began about the year 1750; but the duties of the stewardship have long 

Chilternname

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
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Ellipsis of Chiltern Hills: a geographic area and chalk escarpment in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, England. | Ellipsis of Chiltern Hundreds. | A former local government district in Buckinghamshire, England, abolished on 31 March 2020. | A town in Victoria, Australia.

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