|
From Servants
of the Empire to Everyday Heroes The British Honours System in the Twentieth
Century
Tobias
Harper
Oxford: University
Press, 2020 Hardcover.
xi+298 p. ISBN 978-0198841180. £60
Reviewed by Hugh Clout University College London
In the course of the
twentieth century about one hundred thousand people received honours and titles
from the British Crown in a system that expanded and became ever more complex. However,
from being a thoroughly elitist expression of recognition, it came to embrace
‘everyday heroes’. Thus, during 2020 a crop of former cabinet ministers,
military personnel, medical doctors, academics, sportsmen and women, actors,
charity workers, and countless others were duly honoured. Perhaps the most
remarkable was the appointment of Captain Thomas Moore who was invested on 17
July as a Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle in
response to a public petition. Sir Tom had aimed at raising £1,000 for medical charities
during the COVID-19 pandemic by walking one hundred 25-metre laps of his garden
prior to his hundredth birthday on 30 April. This sum was massively exceeded,
with over 1,500,000 individuals contributing close on £33,000,000. Sir Tom’s
appointment was exceptional and surely well deserved. Rather than being the
outcome of bureaucratic decisions in Whitehall, it was the result of popular
acclaim. By contrast, other honours may appear to be awarded as a matter of
routine or custom. For example, Keir Starmer, now leader of the Labour Party,
was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 2014 following his
service as Director of Public Prosecutions. In his present role, he prefers not
to be referred to as ‘Sir Keir’. Confusion reigns in
many minds about who is permitted to use the title ‘Sir’. Many people think
that the Beatles were awarded knighthoods in October 1965, when in fact they
were made Members of the British Empire (MBE). And, of course, an MBE must not
be confused with the lesser award of a British Empire Medal. The oldest honour
in the present system dates back to the fourteenth century but others have been
created since 1900. Historian Tobias (Toby) Harper casts valuable light on this
often misunderstood system. He was educated in New Zealand and the USA, with
his book emerging from his doctorate defended in 2014 at Columbia University,
New York. His present position is at Arizona State University where he teaches
British and European history. Harper argues that over the decades and
centuries, the British honours system: served to shape and
reinforce fundamental assumptions about social worth and the moral economy of
service to the state, nation and empire. [It is] an institution that affects a
dignified, secretive, formal exterior while also being a focus for gossip,
rumour, scandal, snobbery, and suspicion [2]. But, as the case of
Sir Tom Moore illustrates perfectly, the honours system can also lead ‘to
outpourings of community pride, celebration and joy, which extend beyond the
individual who has won the award’ [2]. The present complex
system of medals, orders of chivalry and other awards has evolved from what
were mostly military processes of recognition in medieval and early modern
Europe to expand across civilian life in recent times. However, during much of
its existence, ‘the British government and Crown saw [the award of honours] as
one of the main currencies for purchasing the loyalty of the people’ [2]. Thus,
the large majority of honours went to agents of the state –
military men, civil servants and faithful politicians –
whose service was duly recognised and rewarded. Until after World War II, the
system was committed to an imperial as well as a domestic project for the
creation of a loyal trans-imperial elite. By the 1960s, the imperial dimension
of honours was collapsing as former colonial territories rejected the
established orders of chivalry and devised their own systems of national
recognition that were totally, or in some cases partially, separated from the
British model. During the nineteenth
and most of the twentieth century the British honours system was run by a small
group of elite politicians and bureaucrats, with input from the Royal
Household. The present book is about ‘the triumph and partial defeat of the
idea that experts in Whitehall were best qualified to judge which kind of
citizens of Britain and the British Empire most deserved recognition from the
monarch’ [7]. Nominations from agents of the British establishment, including
the armed forces, the Anglican Church, scientific societies and universities,
were sorted by appropriate branches of the Civil Service: the War Office,
Foreign Office, Home Office, and above all the Treasury, which strove to
constrain the number of awards each year. Politicians played an important but
secondary role in the award of honours but this did not stop some of them
pushing ‘the boundaries of traditional practice, as defined by other
politicians and the civil service’ [7], in order to reward their allies or
sponsors. Following the severance of former colonies from Whitehall control and
the impact of profound social change in post-war Britain, the honours system
became more open. Nonetheless: The entrenched system
of control over honours by secret Whitehall committees survived assault by
politicians and the public in Britain until the early 1990s, when it was
reshaped, although civil service committees retain more control over quotas and
other aspects of day-to-day honours policy than any other group [7]. Individuals were not
supposed to petition for themselves or for individuals close to them, but this
did not stop certain politicians or Indian princes doing so. David Lloyd
George’s ‘cash for honours’ scandal following World War I was especially
notorious in this respect, but appointments to honours made under Harold Wilson,
Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and other prime ministers have not
escaped criticism. Successful candidates are informed by letter from the prime
minister (or governor in the case of colonies). Announcements then follow in a
supplement to the London Gazette,
with official awards taking place at Buckingham Palace or – in the past – at
the residence of the colonial governor or viceroy. These occasions often involve
meeting the Queen or a senior member of the royal family and are, of course,
‘the most memorable and most emotionally impactful stage of the process’ for
many recipients [8]. Such ‘theatrical’ events surely reflect where honour,
respect, and admiration already exist, but cynics dismiss them as part of ‘a
vain game of political patronage that reinforces a quasi-feudal social order’
[14]. Each year, some appointees choose not to accept the awards being offered
for a variety of moral and political reasons. In six thoroughly
documented chapters, filled with serious scholarship and fascinating stories,
Toby Harper charts how the system evolved from ‘honouring servants of the empire
to everyday heroes’. Not venturing into the controversial world of the peerage,
he demonstrates how new orders were created in the early twentieth century,
with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) extending ‘far deeper into non-elite
classes in British society than any previous honour’ had done [18]. Indeed, between
1917 and 1921, over 20,000 people in Britain and the Empire were awarded this
new honour, giving rise to a substantial backlash from existing elites who
perceived such appointments as representing ‘an excessive –
and diluting – opening up of the fount of honours’ [19]. Political
controversies, partly associated with these new awards, helped to bring about
the downfall of Lloyd George in 1922. During the 1920s,
professional women successfully campaigned for recognition in the honours
system, despite efforts by the Treasury to restrain the volume of annual awards
by focusing on (male) civil servants rather than members of the wider public.
In the course of World War II, careful control continued, with more emphasis
being placed on technocrats and scientists rather than ordinary civilian
volunteers. But care was taken to ‘selectively integrate [members of] unions
and Labour politicians, rather than resisting their increased importance’ in
the nation [19]. After the war, the imperial structure of the honours system
gradually disintegrated but British titles continued to make mention of ‘the
Empire’, as indeed they still do. During the 1960s and 1970s efforts were made
to further broaden the award of honours but such attempts ‘were hindered at
every turn by civil and royal servants’ [20]. Not until 1993 were substantial
revisions achieved by prime minister John Major and a number of senior bureaucrats
who were worried about ‘its reputation as [being] class-based and automatic for
civil servants’ [20]. These changes included redirecting awards made in the
lower ranks of the Order of the British Empire away from those in professional
state service and towards people undertaking exceptional voluntary work. The narrative
structuring From Servants of the Empire
to Everyday Heroes is peppered with countless fascinating stories and
anecdotes. We learn about the machinations of well-known politicians, senior
bureaucrats, scheming Indian maharajahs, naïve painters and decorators,
disgruntled scientists, overjoyed sports personalities, and numerous pop
stars. Two examples must suffice here. Overlooked for decades, singer Dusty
Springfield (Mary O’Brien) received her OBE in hospital shortly before she
died. Sir Jimmy Savile was honoured in his lifetime, but when it became clear
that he had been a child molester (as well as a prominent charity worker) a
call was made to strip him of his knighthood posthumously. The official
response was that knights ‘lost their honour upon death’ [249]. Savile had
already relinquished his award; case closed. Fortified by a
substantial list of archival sources and published material, as well an array
of photographs and political cartoons, From
Servants of the Empire to Everyday Heroes is a very welcome addition to the
literature that dispels much of the mystery surrounding the British honours
system that nonetheless still gives rise to controversy. Recent allocation of
senior honours to the brother of the serving prime minister, the spouse of a
former prime minister, and a foreign-born newspaper tycoon are cases in point.
Cercles © 2020 All rights are reserved and no reproduction from this site for whatever purpose is permitted without the permission of the copyright owner. Please contact us before using any material on this website.
|
|
|
