Order of Merit

Order of Merit
Insignia of the Order of Merit presented to Dorothy Hodgkin, displayed in the Royal Society in London
Awarded by the sovereign of the Commonwealth realms
Type	Dynastic order
Royal house	House of Windsor
Motto	FOR MERIT
Eligibility	All living citizens of the Commonwealth realms
Awarded for	At the monarch's pleasure
Status	Currently awarded
Sovereign	Charles III
Grades (w/ post-nominals)	Member (OM)
Established	1902
Precedence
Next (higher)	Dependent on state
Next (lower)	Dependent on state
Ribbon of the Order of Merit

The Order of Merit (French: Ordre du Mérite) is an award, for notable work in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. The order was set up in 1902, by Edward VII. Membership of the order is a personal gift of its Sovereign (the monarch does not take advice from politicians about who should be a member). The sovereign of the order is the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms. The award is limited to 24 living recipients at any one time from these countries, plus a small number of honorary members.

Whilst all members can use the post-nominal letters OM and a medallion for life, the Order of Merit's precedence, amongst other honours, differs between Commonwealth realms.

History

The award filled a gap in the honour system under Queen Victoria. It was only possible to reward people who held official positions. So, for example, T.H. Huxley could be rewarded because he had sat on Royal Commissions, but Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace held no official positions. Without question their work was as important as Huxley's, or more so. This kind of problem was known by Edward VII, and when he eventually became king, he drew up this new award which had no such limitations. The idea had been discussed before.

The first mention of a possible Order of Merit was made after the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1805. It was discussed in letters between the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Barham and Prime Minister William Pitt. Nothing came from the idea. Later, Queen Victoria, her courtiers, and politicians, all thought that a new order, based on the Prussian order Pour le Mérite, would make up for the insufficient recognition offered by the established honours system to achievement outside of public service, in realms such as art, music, literature, industry, and science. Victoria's husband, Albert, Prince Consort, took an interest in the matter; he wrote in his diary that he met on 16 January 1844 with Robert Peel to discuss the "idea of institution of a civil Order of Merit" and three days later he talked with the Queen on the subject. The concept did not wither and, on 5 January 1888, British prime minister the Marquess of Salisbury submitted to the Queen a draft constitution for an Order of Merit in Science and Art, consisting of one grade split into two branches of knighthood: the Order of Scientific Merit - for Knights of Merit in Science, with the post-nominal letters KMS— and the Order of Artistic Merit - for Knights of Merit in Art, with the post-nominal letters KMA. However, Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process.

King Edward VII, founder of the Order of Merit

It was Victoria's son, Edward VII, who eventually founded the Order of Merit, on 26 June 1902— the date for which his coronation had been originally planned— as a means to acknowledge "exceptionally meritorious service in Our Navy and Our Army, or who may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service towards the advancement of Art, Literature and Science"; all modern aspects of the order were established under his direction, including the division for military figures. From the outset, prime ministers attempted to propose candidates or lobbied to influence the monarch's decision on appointments, but the Royal Household adamantly guarded information about potential names. After 1931, when the Commonwealth of Nations came into being and the former Dominions of the British Empire became independent states, equal in status to the UK, the Order of Merit remained an honour open to all the King's realms; thus, as with the monarch who conferred it, the order ceased to be purely British.

From the start, the order has been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, in 1907. Several people have not taken the honour, such as Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman, and George Bernard Shaw. To date, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, remains the youngest person ever inducted into the Order of Merit, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1968, when he was 47 years of age.

Eligibility and appointment

All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are able to be given the Order of Merit. There can only be 24 living people in the order at any given time, not including honorary appointees, and new members are personally selected by the reigning monarch of the 16 realms, presently Queen Elizabeth II, with the help of her private secretaries; the order has thus been described as "quite possibly, the most prestigious honour one can receive on planet Earth." Within the limited membership is a designated military division, with its own unique insignia; though it has not been abolished, it is currently unused, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma having been the last person so honoured. Honorary members form another group, to which there is no limit, though such appointments are rare; individuals from countries in the Commonwealth of Nations that are not headed by Elizabeth II are considered foreigners, and thus are granted only honorary admissions, such as Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Mother Teresa (India).

On admission into the Order of Merit, members can use the post-nominal letters OM, and have the badge of the order, consisting of a golden crown from which is suspended a red enamelled cross, itself centred by a disk of blue enamel, surrounded by a gold laurel wreath, and bearing in gold lettering the words FOR MERIT; the insignia for the military grouping has a pair of crossed swords behind the central disk. The ribbon of the Order of Merit is divided into two stripes of red and blue; men wear their badges on a neck ribbon, while women carry theirs on a ribbon bow pinned to the left shoulder, and aides-de-camp may wear the insignia on their aiguillettes. Since 1991, the insignia is to be given back upon the recipient's death.

Current members

• Sovereign: King Charles III

Members

1. The Lord Foster of Thames Bank OM appointed 25 November 1997
2. Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS appointed 9 May 2000
3. Sir Tom Stoppard OM CBE FRSL appointed 9 May 2000
4. The Lord Rothschild OM GBE CVO appointed 28 October 2002
5. Sir David Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS FSA appointed 10 June 2005
6. The Lord Eames OM appointed 13 June 2007
7. Sir Tim Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng appointed 13 June 2007
8. The Lord Rees of Ludlow OM FRS FMedSci FREng appointed 13 June 2007
9. Jean Chrétien OM CC PC QC appointed 13 July 2009
10. Neil MacGregor OM AO FSA appointed 4 November 2010
11. David Hockney OM CH appointed 1 January 2012
12. John Howard OM AC appointed 1 January 2012
13. Sir Simon Rattle OM CBE appointed 1 January 2014
14. Sir Magdi Yacoub OM FRS appointed 1 January 2014
15. The Lord Darzi of Denham OM KBE PC FRS FMedSci FRCS FREng appointed 31 December 2015
16. Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FRS FREng appointed 31 December 2015
17. Sir James Dyson OM CBE FRS FREng appointed 31 December 2015
18. Sir David Adjaye OM OBE appointed 11 November 2022
19. Dame Elizabeth Anionwu OM DBE appointed 11 November 2022
20. The Baroness Benjamin OM DBE appointed 11 November 2022
21. Margaret MacMillan OM CC CH appointed 11 November 2022
22. Sir Paul Nurse OM CH FRS appointed 11 November 2022
23. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan OM FRS appointed 11 November 2022
24. Vacant

Honorary members

(none)

Precedence in each realm

As the Order of Merit is open to the citizens of sixteen different countries, each with their own system of orders, decorations, and medals, the order's place of precedence varies from country to country. While in the United Kingdom, members rank below Knights and Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, it has been claimed by Stanley Martin, in his book The Order of Merit 1902-2002: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour, that the Order of Merit is actually the pinnacle of the British honours system. Similarly, though it was not listed in the Canadian order of precedence for honours, decorations, and medals until December 2010, except relating to those who were appointed to the order prior to 1 June 1972, both Christopher McCreery, an expert on Canadian honours and secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, and Rafal Heydel-Mankoo, an editor of Burke's Peerage, stated that the Order of Merit was the highest civilian award for merit a Canadian could receive.

Some orders of precedence are as follows:

Country		Preceding	Following
Australia Order of precedence		Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB)	Knight/Dame of the Order of Australia (AK/AD)
Canada Order of precedence		Cross of Valour (CV)	Companion of the Order of Canada (CC)
New Zealand Order of precedence		Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB)	Member of the Order of New Zealand (ONZ)
United Kingdom	England and Wales Order of precedence	Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (GCB)	Knight/Dame Commander of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (KCB/DCB)

Past members

Substantive members

The Earl Roberts, first British member of the Order of Merit

Florence Nightingale, the first female member of the Order of Merit, appointed in 1907

The Lord Rutherford of Nelson, first New Zealand member of the Order of Merit, appointed in 1925

Samuel Alexander, the first Australian member of the Order of Merit, appointed in 1930

Jan Smuts, the first South African member of the Order of Merit, appointed in 1947

William Lyon Mackenzie King, the first Canadian member of the Order of Merit, appointed in 1947

	Countries	Name	Date of appointment	Date of death
1.		The Earl Roberts	26 June 1902	14 November 1914
2.		The Viscount Wolseley	26 June 1902	25 March 1913
3.		The Earl Kitchener	26 June 1902	5 June 1916
4.		The Lord Rayleigh	26 June 1902	30 June 1919
5.		The Lord Kelvin	26 June 1902	17 December 1907
6.		The Lord Lister	26 June 1902	10 February 1912
7.		Sir Henry Keppel	26 June 1902	17 January 1904
8.		The Viscount Morley of Blackburn	26 June 1902	23 September 1923
9.		William Edward Hartpole Lecky	26 June 1902	22 October 1903
10.		Sir Edward Hobart Seymour	26 June 1902	2 March 1929
11.		Sir William Huggins	26 June 1902	12 May 1910
12.		George Frederic Watts	26 June 1902	1 July 1904
13.		Sir George Stuart White	30 June 1905	24 June 1912
14.		The Lord Fisher	30 June 1905	10 July 1920
15.		Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb	30 June 1905	9 December 1905
16.		Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema	30 June 1905	25 June 1912
17.		George Meredith	30 June 1905	18 May 1909
18.		William Holman Hunt	30 June 1905	7 September 1910
22.		The Earl of Cromer	29 June 1906	29 January 1917
23.		The Viscount Bryce	11 February 1907	22 January 1922
24.		Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker	30 June 1907	10 December 1911
25.		Florence Nightingale	12 May 1907	13 August 1910
26.		Henry Jackson	26 June 1908	25 September 1921
27.		Alfred Russel Wallace	26 June 1908	7 November 1913
28.		Sir William Crookes	8 July 1910	4 April 1919
29.		Thomas Hardy	8 July 1910	11 January 1928
30.		Sir George Otto Trevelyan	19 June 1911	17 August 1928
31.		Sir Edward William Elgar	19 June 1911	23 February 1934
32.		Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson	8 March 1912	25 May 1921
33.		Sir Joseph John Thomson	15 March 1912	30 August 1940
34.		Sir Archibald Geikie	1 January 1914	10 November 1924
35.		The Earl of Ypres	3 December 1914	22 May 1925
36.		The Viscount Haldane	26 May 1915	19 August 1928
37.		Henry James	1 January 1916	28 February 1916
38.		The Earl Jellicoe	31 May 1916	20 November 1935
39.		The Earl of Balfour	3 June 1916	19 March 1930
41.		The Earl Beatty	3 June 1919	11 March 1936
42.		The Earl Haig	3 June 1919	29 January 1928
44.		The Earl Lloyd-George	5 August 1919	26 March 1945
45.		Sir James Matthew Barrie	2 January 1922	19 June 1937
46.		Francis Herbert Bradley	3 June 1924	18 September 1924
47.		Sir Charles Scott Sherrington	3 June 1924	4 March 1952
48.		Sir James George Frazer	1 January 1925	7 May 1941
49.	/	The Lord Rutherford of Nelson	1 January 1925	19 October 1937
50.		Sir Charles Algernon Parsons	3 June 1927	11 February 1931
51.		Sir George Abraham Grierson	4 June 1928	9 March 1941
52.		Robert Seymour Bridges	3 June 1929	21 April 1930
53.		John Galsworthy	3 June 1929	31 January 1933
54.	/	Samuel Alexander	3 June 1930	13 September 1938
55.		Montague Rhodes James	3 June 1930	12 June 1936
56.		George Macaulay Trevelyan	3 June 1930	21 July 1962
57.		Sir Charles Edward Madden	1 January 1931	5 June 1935
58.		Philip Wilson Steer	1 January 1931	18 March 1942
59.		Sir William Henry Bragg	3 June 1931	10 March 1942
60.		John William Mackail	1 January 1935	13 December 1945
61.		John Edward Masefield	3 June 1935	12 May 1967
62.		Ralph Vaughan Williams	3 June 1935	26 August 1958
63.		Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins	3 June 1935	16 May 1947
64.		The Lord Chetwode	1 January 1936	6 July 1950
65.		Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher	1 February 1937	18 April 1940
66.		The Lord Baden-Powell	11 May 1937	8 January 1941
67.		Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington	9 June 1938	22 November 1944
68.		The Lord Chatfield	2 January 1939	15 November 1967
69.		Sir James Hopwood Jeans	2 January 1939	16 September 1946
70.		The Lord Newall	29 October 1940	30 November 1963
71.	/	George Gilbert Aimé Murray	1 January 1941	20 May 1957
72.		Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens	1 January 1942	1 January 1944
73.		Augustus Edwin John	11 June 1942	31 October 1961
74.		The Lord Adrian	11 June 1942	4 August 1977
75.		Sir William Searle Holdsworth	1 January 1943	2 January 1944
76.		Sir Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound	3 September 1943	21 October 1943
77.		The Lord Passfield	8 June 1944	13 October 1947
78.		Sir Henry Hallett Dale	8 June 1944	23 July 1968
79.		Sir Giles Gilbert Scott	8 June 1944	8 February 1960
80.	/	Alfred North Whitehead	1 January 1945	30 December 1947
82.		Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill	1 January 1946	24 January 1965
83.		The Viscount Portal of Hungerford	1 January 1946	22 April 1971
84.		The Viscount Alanbrooke	13 June 1946	17 June 1963
85.		The Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope	13 June 1946	12 June 1963
86.		The Earl of Halifax	13 June 1946	23 December 1959
87.		Jan Christiaan Smuts	1 January 1947	11 September 1950
89.		William Lyon Mackenzie King	17 November 1947	22 July 1950
90.		Thomas Stearns Eliot	1 January 1948	4 January 1965
91.		Sir Robert Robinson	9 June 1949	8 February 1975
92.		The Earl Russell	9 June 1949	2 February 1970
93.		Sir Alexander George Montagu Cadogan	1 January 1951	9 July 1968
94.		The Viscount Trenchard	1 January 1951	10 February 1956
95.		George Edward Moore	7 June 1951	24 October 1958
96.		The Earl Attlee	5 November 1951	8 October 1967
97.		Wilder Graves Penfield	1 January 1953	5 April 1976
98.		Walter John de la Mare	1 June 1953	22 June 1956
100.		The Lord Hailey	31 May 1956	1 June 1969
101.		Sir John Douglas Cockcroft	1 January 1957	18 September 1967
102.		The Viscount Waverley	8 December 1957	4 January 1958
103.		Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet	12 June 1958	31 August 1985
104.		The Viscount Samuel	21 November 1958	2 February 1963
105.		The Earl Alexander of Tunis	23 April 1960	16 June 1969
106.		Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood	23 April 1960	9 October 1967
107.		Graham Sutherland	23 April 1960	17 February 1980
108.		Sir Geoffrey de Havilland	23 November 1962	21 May 1965
109.		Sir Basil Urwin Spence	23 November 1962	19 November 1976
110.		Sir Owen Dixon	29 May 1963	7 July 1972
112.		George Peabody Gooch	16 August 1963	31 August 1968
113.		Henry Spencer Moore	16 August 1963	31 August 1986
114.		The Lord Britten	23 March 1965	4 December 1976
115.		Dorothy Mary Hodgkin	23 March 1965	29 July 1994
116.		The Earl Mountbatten of Burma	15 July 1965	27 August 1979
117.	/	The Lord Florey	15 July 1965	21 February 1968
118.		The Lord Blackett	20 November 1967	13 July 1974
119.		Sir William Turner Walton	20 November 1967	8 March 1983
120.		Benjamin Lauder Nicholson	23 April 1968	6 February 1982
121.	/	The Lord Zuckerman	23 April 1968	1 April 1993
123.		Edward Morgan Forster	1 January 1969	7 June 1970
124.		Malcolm John MacDonald	14 July 1969	11 January 1981
125.		The Lord Penney	14 July 1969	3 March 1991
126.		Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor	14 July 1969	27 June 1975
127.		Dame Cicely Veronica Wedgwood	14 July 1969	9 March 1997
128.		John Cawte Beaglehole	21 March 1970	10 October 1971
129.		Lester Bowles Pearson	20 May 1971	27 December 1972
130.		Sir Isaiah Berlin	20 May 1971	5 November 1997
131.		Sir George Robert Freeman Edwards	20 May 1971	2 March 2003
132.		Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin	17 April 1973	20 December 1998
133.		Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac	17 April 1973	20 October 1984
134.		The Earl of Stockton	2 April 1976	29 December 1986
135.		The Lord Hinton of Bankside	2 April 1976	22 June 1983
136.		The Lord Clark	2 April 1976	21 May 1983
137.	/	Sir Ronald Syme	2 April 1976	4 September 1989
138.		The Lord Todd	24 October 1977	10 January 1997
139.		The Lord Franks	24 October 1977	15 October 1992
140.		Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton	24 October 1977	18 October 1988
141.		John Boynton Priestley	24 October 1977	14 August 1984
142.		The Lord Olivier	6 February 1981	11 July 1989
143.		Sir Peter Brian Medawar	6 February 1981	2 October 1987
144.		The Lord Cheshire	6 February 1981	31 July 1992
147.		Sir Sidney Robert Nolan	11 November 1983	28 November 1992
148.		Sir Michael Kemp Tippett	11 November 1983	8 January 1998
150.		Henry Graham Greene	11 February 1986	3 April 1991
152.		Sir Frank Whittle	11 February 1986	9 August 1996
153.		The Lord Menuhin	25 February 1987	12 March 1999
154.		Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich	15 February 1988	3 November 2001
155.		Max Ferdinand Perutz	15 February 1988	6 February 2002
156.		Dame Cicely Mary Saunders	30 November 1989	14 July 2005
157.		The Lord Porter of Luddenham	30 November 1989	31 August 2002
158.		Margaret Thatcher	7 December 1990	8 April 2013
159.		Dame Joan Alston Sutherland	29 November 1991	10 October 2010
160.	/	Francis Harry Compton Crick	27 November 1991	28 July 2004
161.		Dame Ninette de Valois	17 November 1992	8 March 2001
163.		The Lord Jenkins of Hillhead	6 December 1993	5 January 2003
167.		Sir Arthur John Gielgud	9 December 1996	21 May 2000
168.		The Lord Denning	25 November 1997	5 March 1999
170.		Sir Denis Eric Rooke	25 November 1997	2 September 2008
171.		Edward James Hughes	10 August 1998	28 October 1998
172.		George Basil Hume	25 May 1999	17 June 1999
173.		Sir James Whyte Black	9 May 2000	22 March 2010

Honorary members

Mother Teresa (Agnesë Bojaxhiu) was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1983

	Countries	Name	Date of appointment	Date of death
19.		Prince Yamagata Aritomo	21 February 1906	1 February 1922
20.		Prince Ōyama Iwao	21 February 1906	10 December 1916
21.		Marquess Tōgō Heihachirō	21 February 1906	30 May 1934
40.		Ferdinand Foch	29 November 1918	20 March 1929
43.		Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre	26 June 1919	3 January 1931
81.		Dwight David Eisenhower	12 June 1945	28 March 1969
88.		John Gilbert Winant	1 January 1947	3 November 1947
99.		Albert Schweitzer	25 February 1955	4 September 1965
111.		Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	12 June 1963	17 April 1975
149.	/	Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu	18 November 1983	5 September 1997

References

• Martin, Stanley (2007). The Order of Merit: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. ISBN 978-1-86064-848-9.