In 1869, under the new Meiji government, a Japanese peerage was created by an Imperial decree merging the former Court nobility (kuge) and former feudal lords (daimyo) into a single new aristocratic class called the kazoku.
A second imperial ordinance in 1884 grouped the kazoku into five ranks equivalent to the European prince (or duke), marquis, count, viscount, and baron. Although this grouping idea was taken from the European peerage, the Japanese titles were taken from Chinese and based on the ancient feudal system in China.
The House of Peers originally comprised:
For the first session of the Imperial Diet (1889–1890), there were 145 hereditary members and 106 imperial appointees and high taxpayers, for a total of 251 members.
With the creation of new peers, additional seats for members of the former Korean aristocracy and five seats for representatives from the Gakushuin Peer's School, membership peaked at 403 seats by 1925. In its 92nd and final session, the number of members was 373.
|Name||Title||Dates as President||Sessions|
|1||Ito Hirobumi||Count (hakushaku)||24 October 1890 – 20 July 1891||1|
|2||Hachisuka Mochiaki||Marquis (kōshaku)||20 July 1891 – 3 October 1896||2–9|
|3||Konoe Atsumaro||Prince (kōshaku)||3 October 1896 – 4 December 1903||10–18|
|4||Tokugawa Iesato||Prince (kōshaku)||4 December 1903 – 9 June 1933||19–64|
|5||Konoe Fumimaro||Prince (kōshaku)||9 June 1933 – 17 June 1937||65–70|
|6||Matsudaira Yorinaga||Count (hakushaku)||17 June 1937 – 11 October 1944||71–85|
|7||Tokugawa Kuniyuki||Prince (kōshaku)||11 October 1944 – 19 June 1946||86–89|
|8||Tokugawa Iemasa||Prince (kōshaku)||19 June 1946 – 2 May 1947||90-92|