January 2011, Fellowes was elevated to the peerage, being created Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, of West Stafford in the County of Dorset, and on the same day was introduced in the House of Lords, where he sits on the Conservative Benches. Other interests Fellowes is involved in volunteer work. He is Chairman of the RNIB appeal for Talking Books. He is a vice-president of the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust and Patron of a number of charities: the southwest branch of Age UK, Changing Faces, Living Paintings, the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity, Breast Cancer Haven and the Nursing Memorial Appeal. He also supports other causes, including charities concerned with the care of those suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He recently opened the Dorset office of the southwest adoption charity, Families for Children. On May 19, 2022, Julian Fellowes was awarded The Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. Prior Award winners include author Tom Wolfe, Louis Auchincloss, and David McCullough. Author Washington Irving founded the Society in 1835.Fellowes sits on the Appeal Council for the National Memorial Arboretum and is a Patron of Moviola, an initiative aimed at facilitating rural cinema screenings in the West Country. He also sits on the Arts and Media Honours Committee. Family On 28 April 1990, Fellowes married Emma Joy Kitchener (born 1963), daughter of The Hon. Charles Kitchener (1920–1982) and a lady-in-waiting to Princess Michael of Kent. She is also a great-great-niece of Herbert, 1st Earl Kitchener. He proposed to her only 20 minutes after meeting her at a party, "having spent 19 minutes getting up the nerve". On 15 October 1998 the Fellowes family changed its surname from Fellowes to Kitchener-Fellowes. Fellowes publicly expressed his dissatisfaction that the proposals to change the rules of royal succession were not extended to hereditary peerages, which had they been would have allowed his wife to succeed her uncle as Countess Kitchener in her own right. He said: "I find it ridiculous that, in 2011, a perfectly sentient adult woman has no rights of inheritance whatsoever when it comes to a hereditary title." Instead, the title became extinct on her uncle's death because there were no male heirs. On 9 May 2012, the Queen issued a Royal Warrant of Precedence granting Lady Fellowes the same rank and style as the daughter of an earl, as would have been due to her