Earl of Balfour

{{short description|Earldom in the Peerage of the United Kingdom}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

{{Infobox hereditary title

| name = Earldom of Balfour

| image = 150px
180px

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption = Argent, on a Chevron engrailed between three Mullets Sable as many Otter's heads erased of the first.

| creation_date = 5 May 1922

| creation =

| monarch = King George V

| peerage = Peerage of the United Kingdom

| baronetage =

| first_holder = Arthur Balfour

| last_holder =

| present_holder = Roderick Balfour, 5th Earl of Balfour

| heir_apparent =

| heir_presumptive = Hon. Charles Balfour

| remainder_to = Special remainder{{London Gazette |issue=32691 |date= 5 May 1922| page= 3512 |supp=}}

| subsidiary_titles = Viscount Traprain

| status = Extant

| extinction_date =

| family_seat = Burpham Lodge

| former_seat = Whittingehame House{{cite news|title=Across the Divide: A J Balfour and Keir Hardie in 1905|url=https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/features/across-the-divide-a-j-balfour-and-keir-hardie-in-1905|access-date=8 September 2017|work=www.nrscotland.gov.uk|publisher=National Records of Scotland|language=en}}

| motto = VIRTUS AD ÆTHERA TENDIT ("Virtue strives towards heaven")

| footnotes =

}}

Earl of Balfour is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1922 for Conservative politician Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905 and Foreign Secretary from 1916 to 1919.{{cite book |title= Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood|publisher=Burke's Peerage & Gentry |editor= Mosley, Charles |editor-link= Charles Mosley (genealogist) |edition=107 |year= 2003 |pages=231–232 |ref=Burke |isbn=0-9711966-2-1}}

Image:A.J. Balfour LCCN2014682753 (cropped).jpg

The earldom was created with special remainder, failing male issue of his own, to:

1. his younger brother, the Right Honourable Gerald William Balfour, and the heirs male of his body, failing which to
2. his nephew Francis Cecil Campbell Balfour and the heirs male of his body, and failing which to
3. his nephew Oswald Herbert Campbell Balfour and the heirs male of his body.

The latter two were the sons of his deceased youngest brother Colonel Eustace James Anthony Balfour. Balfour was made Viscount Traprain, of Whittingehame in the County of Haddington, at the same time as he was given the earldom. This title is also in the Peerage of the United Kingdom and was created with similar remainder.

Balfour never married, and was succeeded according to the special remainders by his younger brother Gerald, the second Earl. He was also a Conservative politician and notably served as Chief Secretary for Ireland, as President of the Board of Trade and as President of the Local Government Board. This line of the family failed on the death of his grandson, the fourth Earl, in 2003. {{As of|2017}} the titles are held by his second cousin once removed, the fifth Earl. He is the grandson of the aforementioned Francis Cecil Campbell Balfour, nephew of the first Earl.

The family seat is Burpham Lodge, near Arundel, Sussex.