Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:14:18.138Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VOLUNTARY SERVICE AND STATE HONOURS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2015

TOBIAS HARPER
TOBIAS HARPER*
Affiliation:
Providence College
*
1 Cunningham Square, Providence, RI 02918, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The importance of the honours system as an institution in British politics and public life has frequently been underestimated. At the end of the First World War, the British government prioritized voluntary service to the state as an area which the honours system should reward more than others through the newly created Order of the British Empire. However, after the war the Order changed to focus more on civil servants, soldiers, and the broad category of ‘local service’. The latter could include volunteers, but more often did not. Various attempts to democratize honours through reforms from the 1960s focused on rewarding a wider range of service. The most successful of these was John Major's honours reform programme in 1993, which returned volunteer service to the forefront of the public image of honours. While these reforms were not as egalitarian as they seemed, they were successful because they integrated an ideology of crown honours with the other functions of the modern monarchy and opened up the honours system to a wider potential set of recipients. At the same time, they maintained a hierarchical structure that meant that elites who had traditionally enjoyed the exclusivity of high honours continued to do so.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 2015 , pp. 641 - 661
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Special thanks are due to Susan Pedersen, Hannah Barker, and Guy Ortolano for their advice about this article at various stages. I am very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers at the Historical Journal, whose feedback shaped the argument of this article in significant ways.

References

1 Cannadine, David, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy (New York, NY, 1999)Google Scholar, p. 300.

2 Hobsbawm, E. J. and Ranger, T. O, eds., The invention of tradition (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.

3 Hilton, Matthew and McKay, James, ‘Introduction’, to Hilton, Matthew and McKay, James, eds., The ages of voluntarism: how we got to the big society (Oxford, 2011), pp. 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Note on Honours, Standard Note, House of Commons Library, SN/PC/02832, pp. 13–16.

5 Phillips, Hayden, Review of the honours system (London, 2004)Google Scholar, p. 15.

6 De la Bere, Ivan, The Queen's Orders of Chivalry (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Martin, Stanley, The Order of Merit: one hundred years of matchless honour (London, 2006)Google Scholar; Vickers, Hugo, Royal orders (London, 1994)Google Scholar.

7 Cook, Andrew, Cash for honours (Stroud, 2008)Google Scholar; Cullen, Tom A., Maundy Gregory: purveyor of honours (London, 1974)Google Scholar; De-la-Noy, Michael, The honours system (London, 1985)Google Scholar; Walker, John, The queen has been pleased (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

8 Galloway, Peter, The Order of St Michael and St George (London, 2002)Google Scholar; Galloway, Peter, The Order of the British Empire (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Galloway, Peter, Companions of honour (London, 2002)Google Scholar.

9 The best study of this type is: Searle, G. R., Corruption in British politics, 1895–1930 (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

10 The only woman made OM before Dorothy Hodgkin in 1965 was Florence Nightingale in 1907.

11 Supplement to the London Gazette, 3 June 1913, pp. 3903–8.

12 Cohen, Deborah, The war come home: disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914–1939 (Berkeley, CA, 2001), pp. 15–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Galloway, The Order of the British Empire, p. 1.

14 Ibid., pp. 2–4.

15 Thompson, Alastair, ‘Honours uneven: decorations, the state and bourgeois society in imperial Germany’, Past and Present, 144 (1994), pp. 171–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Supplement to the London Gazette, 15 Mar. 1918, pp. 3283–90, 7 June 1918, pp. 6686–749, 4 Oct. 1918, pp. 11771–7, 18 Nov. 1918, pp. 13575–9.

17 Thorpe, A. Winton, Burke's handbook to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (London, 1921)Google Scholar.

18 ‘THORPE, A[rthur] Winton’, Who was who (1920–2008; online edn, Oxford, 2007, www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U243726).

19 Ibid.

20 Thorpe, Burke's handbook to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, p. 513.

21 Ibid., p. 9.

22 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

23 Ibid, p. 12.

24 Ibid.

25 Galloway, The Order of the British Empire, p. 39.

26 See Searle, Corruption in British politics, 1895–1930, pp. 350–76.

27 Cannadine, The decline and fall of the British aristocracy, pp. 314–22.

28 De la Bere, The Queen's Orders of Chivalry, p. 156.

29 Order of the British Empire: Committee on the Permanent Establishment, Memoranda/Report, The National Archives (TNA), T 343/1.

30 Ibid.

31 Memorandum by Sir Frederick Ponsonby, 12 May 1921, Order of the British Empire: Committee on the Permanent Establishment, Memoranda/Report, TNA, T 343/1.

32 Ibid.

33 Memorandum from Col. Sir Herbert Jessel, Bart., Order of the British Empire: Committee on the Permanent Establishment, Memoranda/Report, TNA, T 343/1.

34 Stamfordham to Fisher, 13 May 1921, Order of the British Empire: Committee on the Permanent Establishment, Memoranda/Report, TNA, T 343/1.

35 Fisher to J. T. Davies, 2 May 1921, Honours Scales 1921 – Re-Establishment of the Order of the British Empire, 1 May 1921–21 May 1930, TNA, T 344/1.

36 Paper on allocations in the Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire, 1933, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1933, Committee of the Order of the Bath, TNA, T 344/2.

37 Order of the British Empire, Committee of 1937 on the Distribution of the Permanent Establishment, 6 July 1937, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1939, Committee on the Order of the British Empire, TNA, T 344/10.

38 Donald Banks to Robert Knox, 16 July 1937, Note on B.E.O. (1937), 15, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1939, Committee on the Order of the British Empire, TNA, T 344/10.

39 Note by R.U.E.K., 25 June 1940, Half-Yearly Honours List (Civil), New Year, Birthday 1940, TNA, T 305/7.

40 Ibid.

41 Note by Horace Wilson, 28 Nov. 1940, Half-Yearly Honours List (Civil), New Year 1941, TNA, T 305/8.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Half-Yearly Honours List (Civil), New Year 1941, TNA, T 305/8.

45 Anthony Powell, Messengers of day (New York, NY, 1978), p. 87.

46 See TNA, T 344/10–T 344/14.

47 Summary of Comments on UKCH ('48), Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

48 Honours Committee, Draft Memorandum by the chairman, 28 Oct. 1947, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 J. W. Phillips to Bridges, 8 Nov. 1947, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

53 Conclusions of a meeting of the Honours Selection Committee, 15 Nov. 1947, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

54 Review of Honours Reactions, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

55 Harold Sent to Alexander Maxwell, 26 Jan. 1948; Summary of Views of Persons Approached by Sir Geoffrey Ince; Note from G. D. Shepherd, 24 Jan. 1948; all in: Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

56 A. H. Ward to Bridges, 2 Mar. 1948, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1948 Enquiry, instigated by Lord (then Sir Edward) Bridges, on outside opinion of honours lists, TNA, T 344/15.

57 Requests for Honours for Women Doctors, Medical Women's Federation Papers, Wellcome Library (WL), SA/MWF/C.243.

58 Mrs M. Nisbet to principal private secretary, 5 Mar. 1952, Requests for Honours for Women Doctors, Medical Women's Federation Papers, WL, SA/MWF/C.243.

59 See Requests for Honours for Women Doctors, Medical Women's Federation Papers, WL, SA/MWF/C.243.

60 Benn, Tony, Out of the wilderness: diaries, 1963–1967 (London, 1987), pp. 16–17, 272–3, 327Google Scholar.

61 P. S. Milner-Barry to Saville Garner, 20 Dec. 1966, Honours for State Servants, TNA, FCO 57/16.

62 L. J. Dunnett to Milner-Barry, 21 Dec. 1966, Honours for State Servants, TNA, FCO 57/16.

63 Lawrence Helsby to William Haley, 9 Feb. 1965, Honours for State Servants, TNA, FCO 57/16.

64 Note by P. S. Milner-Barry, 19 Mar. 1973, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1974, General Papers, TNA, T 344/51.

65 Note by P. S. Milner-Barry, 8 June 1973, Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1974, General Papers, TNA, T 344/51.

66 Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 Jan. 1968, pp. 9–19.

67 David Carlton, ‘Modernising the Honours System’, Radical: The Journal of the Radical Society (Sept. 1989), p. 15.

68 Labour Research (Dec. 1983), pp. 308–10.

69 Honours Scales: Review of Honours Scales 1984, general papers, TNA, T 344/55.

70 House of Commons parliamentary papers, 4 Mar. 1993, p. 453.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 See, for example, ‘Honours, and still too many breaches’, Guardian, 5 Mar. 1993, p. 21.

75 According to Tony Benn, Major vehemently rejected the idea of a peerage for himself: Benn, Tony, Free at last!: diaries, 1991–2001 (London, 2002)Google Scholar, p. 524.

76 Adonis, Andrew, A class act: the myth of Britain's classless society (London, 1997)Google Scholar, p. 137.

77 Select Committee on Public Administration Minutes of Evidence, Examination of Witnesses (Questions 860–79), 20 May 2004, online at: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmpubadm/212/4052005.htm accessed 10 May 2012.

78 Guardian, 5 Mar. 1993, p. 21.

79 Note on Honours, Standard Note, House of Commons Library, SN/PC/02832, pp. 13–16.

80 Ibid., p. 13.

81 Ibid., p. 14.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid., p. 15

84 Prochaska, Frank, Royal bounty: the making of welfare monarchy (New Haven, CT, 1995)Google Scholar.

85 Conclusions of a Meeting Held on Wednesday, 5th May 1948, Committee on the Scale of United Kingdom Civil Honours (UKCH) Circulated Papers, 1947–53, TNA, T 344/24.

86 See, for example, Charles, Nick, Through a glass brightly: the fall and rise of an alcoholic (London, 1998), pp. 186–92Google Scholar; Gill, Charan, Tikka look at me now: Charan Gill, MBE: the autobiography (Edinburgh, 2006), pp. 193–8Google Scholar; Lancaster, Esme, My journeys through life: the autobiography of Esme Lancaster M.B. E. (Birmingham, 2006)Google Scholar, p. 164.

87 Lewis, Jane, The voluntary sector, the state, and social work in Britain: the charity organisation society/family welfare association since 1869 (Aldershot, 1995), pp. 149–50Google Scholar.

88 Supplement to the London Gazette, 30 Dec. 1997, pp. 5–24.

89 Ibid.