The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, where New Year's Day, 1 January, is marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth Realms also mark this day in this way.
The awards are presented by or in the name of the reigning monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II or her vice-regal representative. British honours are published in supplements to the London Gazette.
Honours have been awarded at New Year since at least 1890, in which year a list of Queen Victoria's awards was published by the London Gazette on 2 January.
Australia has discontinued New Year Honours, as it now announces its honours on Australia Day, 26 January, and the Queen's Birthday holiday, in early June.
Read more about New Year Honours: New Year Honours Lists
Famous quotes containing the words year and/or honours:
“Jerry: She’s one of those third-year girls that gripe my liver.
Milo: Third-year girls?
Jerry: Yeah, you know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture. They give me a swift pain.
Milo: Why?
Jerry: They’re officious and dull. They’re always making profound observations they’ve overheard.”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)
“Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)