Birthday Honours: Posthumous knighthood for Martin Amis?

[Harry Merritt]

The acclaimed writer Martin Amis, son of the acclaimed writer Sir Kingsley Amis and stepson of the 7th Baron Kilmarnock, died a few weeks ago. He received a knighthood on the King's Birthday Honours List though he did not live to see it. How often are posthumous knighthoods awarded?

[Jesse Honey]

The newspapers are reporting that it's not posthumous- it was granted the day before he died: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/national/uk-today/23596208.kings-birthday-honours-martin-amis-knighted-death/ 

On Sun, 18 Jun 2023 at 22:20, Harry Merritt <harryw...@gmail.com> wrote:

The acclaimed writer Martin Amis, son of the acclaimed writer Sir Kingsley Amis and stepson of the 7th Baron Kilmarnock, died a few weeks ago. He received a knighthood on the King's Birthday Honours List though he did not live to see it. How often are posthumous knighthoods awarded?

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[Richard R]

Here's the entry from the London Gazette:

Martin Louis AMIS, Author. For services to Literature.
(To be dated 18 May 2023)

I think I've read somewhere that knighthoods are never posthumously awarded as you have to be living to be a knight. I've looked through a few books but can't find the source for this, but will look again when I have time.

[ThomasFoolery]

I believe a widow can be raised to the rank and style of a knight’s wife/lady. Not sure if this is still done in recent times. 

[Richard R]

Thanks for this Thomas. Giving a widow the style & title that would have been her husband's had he survived is still done from time to time. Sir Martin received his knighthood before he died and so his widow already has the style of the wife (now widow) of a knight. I'm still of the view there is no example of a posthumous award of knighthood.

[David Beamish]

In corroboration of what Richard says about posthumous knighthoods: a Gazette notice dated 6 November 2018 recorded the promotion of Lord Heywood of Whitehall to GCB (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3145834), with the note "(To be dated 31st October 2018)". He had died on 4 November.

[Jonathan]

Is it the case that honours are not awarded posthumously, but that they instead backdate the honour to when the recipient was alive?

There is a fair amount of press coverage, explaining how Sir Martin accepted the knighthood before he died. I always believed honours are considered to "start" from when the announcement is published in the Gazette; that's when people can style themselves "Sir " or "Dame", or add OBE, etc. I guess that is the purpose of the backdating in this case.

The Independent claims, "...he will be the first person who is no longer living ever to be featured on the [Birthday Honours] list." That may well be true, as Lord Heywood's GCB was an ad-hoc announcement, not a Birthday or New Year honour.

[S. S.]

If we are discussing knighthoods, we can discuss how the Knights Bachelor style themselves. For them, men can style themselves from the date of announcement in The London Gazette. Though if we are being pedantic, they technically have not had the ceremony performed for their knighthood till later. 

The question then arises, is their appointment as  Knight Bachelor supposed to be dated from the date of announcement of the intention to confer the knighthood or the actual date upon which they are knighted? The more technical may consider putting the date of the actual knighting versus the announcement. 

So that brings up a question I had, if a person is announced as a Knight Bachelor in The London Gazette but subsequently dies without undergoing, is he still a Knight Bachelor? Let us also suppose the knighthood date is not pre-dated since that would mean pre-dating the intention to confer the knighthood, not the actual knighting, unless letters patent are passed to that effect dated before the death of the person, then he has truly been knighted and the ceremony dispensed with due to the letters patent. 

S.S.

[Jonathan]

There are plenty of examples of knights who never attended in investiture, but who were styled as knights during their lifetimes and in reference works since. I have always thought of investitures for honours in the same way as the Coronation. It's a bit of pomp and ceremony, but ultimately the King was still King before the Coronation.

[David Beamish]

The practice of allowing knights to use their title from the date of the announcement rather than the date of the investiture dates from June 1965, when the following notice, dated 8 June, appeared in the London Gazette (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/43677/page/5535):

"It is The QUEEN'S wish that when an announcement has been approved by -the Sovereign and has been published officially to the effect that the honour of Knighthood is to be conferred on a person he should forthwith assume the distinctive appellation or prefix of a Knight.
Appointment as Knight Bachelor will nevertheless require completion subsequently as heretofore by Investiture. Letters Patent will be used only in those exceptional cases in which personal Investiture is impracticable.
Provision is being made, by Her Majesty's command, in the Statutes of the Order of the Bath, the Order of St. Michael and St. George, the Royal Victorian Order and the Order of the British Empire so that Knights Grand Cross and Knights Commander on official publication of their appointments will forthwith assume the Knighthood prefix. The appointments will require completion subsequently by Investiture and presentation of the insignia."

[S R Eglesfield]

I have been able to find a number of instances where knighthoods have been conferred "posthumously".

The golfer Sir (Thomas) Henry Cotton, MBE (28 I 1907 - 22 XII 1987) was created KCMG in the New Year 1988 Honours. Like Sir Martin Amis, he had accepted the honour before his death, and it was made effective from the date of his death. Similarly, in 2013, the New Zealand Supreme Court Judge Sir Robert Stanley Chambers (23 VIII 1953 - 21 V 2013) was made a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in The Queen's Birthday Honours on 3 June, and the honour, which he had been aware of before his death, was backdated to 20 May.

Brig Sir Murray William James Bourchier, CMG, DSO, VD (4 IV 1881 - 16 XII 1937), Deputy Premier of Victoria in Australia from 1935 to 1936, was knighted "posthumously" in January 1938. Another Australian politician, Sir John Montgomery Dunningham (21 I 1884 - 26 V 1938), was knighted "posthumously" in recognition of his work as minister in charge of the New South Wales 150th anniversary celebrations. I have, however, been unable to confirm whether or not either of them was offered and accepted the honour before his death, or what was the effective date of the conferral of the knighthood in each case.

There were undoubtedly three conferrals of posthumous knighthoods during the First World War, but perhaps this was just done in the exceptional circumstances of the time. Col Sir John Edmond Gough, VC, CB, CMG, ADC (25 X 1871 - 21 II 1915), whose great-grandfather was a brother of the 1st Viscount Gough, received a posthumous KCB in 1915  - see the announcement in the London Gazette dated 20 April 1915 at https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29136/page/3825. The KCB was also conferred posthumously on Rear-Adm Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 4th Bt, CB, MVO (23 III 1864 - 31 V 1916) and Rear-Adm the Hon Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood, CB, MVO, DSO (2 X 1870 - 31 V 1916; third son of the 4th Viscount Hood, and father of the 6th and 7th Viscounts), both of whom were killed in the Battle of Jutland - see the announcement in the Edinburgh Gazette dated 19 September 1916 at https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Edinburgh/issue/12988/page/1673/data.pdf.

It would appear that the situation at the moment is that one has to be alive to be nominated for an honour, and that the only awards which can be made posthumously are those for gallantry. If a person has been offered, and has accepted an honour, it can still be conferred on him, albeit that the effective date of the conferral will be backdated to the date of his death, or earlier (this does not apply in the case of peerages, however - if the intended recipient of a peerage dies before the creation has passed the Great Seal, he cannot become a peer posthumously).

There are a number of references on the internet to petitions for posthumous knighthoods to be awarded to various people (mostly sportsmen and entertainers), but these all appear to have been rejected to date, seemingly on the ground that a petition calling for an individual to be honoured cannot be accepted. It has, however, been stated that a petition calling on the Government and Parliament to reform the honours system, so that knighthoods can be awarded posthumously, could be considered.

If it were to become possible for knighthoods to be awarded posthumously as a general practice, there would be a question of how far back in time this should go - there have been petitions for posthumous knighthoods to be awarded to the likes of Charles Darwin and William Shakespeare, which many people might well consider to be inappropriate after the passage of so much time.

[Richard R]

Thanks for these very useful notes.

In the cases where the effective date of appointment is the date of death, could it not be equally said to have been the recipients last day of LIFE?