Orders, Decorations, and Medals of The United Kingdom - Honorary Awards

Honorary Awards

For a more comprehensive list, see List of honorary British knights and dames.

Citizens of countries which do not have the Queen as their head of state sometimes have honours conferred upon them, in which case the awards are "honorary". In the case of knighthoods, the holders are entitled to place initials behind their name but not style themselves "Sir" as they are not entitled to receive the accolade. Examples of foreigners with honorary knighthoods are Billy Graham, Bill Gates, Bob Geldof, Bono and Rudolph Giuliani, while Arsène Wenger and Gérard Houllier are honorary OBEs. Honorary knighthoods arise from Orders of Chivalry rather than as Knights Bachelor as the latter confers no postnominal letters.

Recipients of honorary awards who later become subjects of Her Majesty may apply to convert their awards to substantive ones. Examples of this are Marjorie Scardino, American CEO of Pearson PLC, and Yehudi Menuhin, the American-born violinist and conductor. They were granted an honorary damehood and knighthood respectively while still American citizens, and converted them to substantive awards after they assumed British nationality, becoming Dame Marjorie and Sir Yehudi. Menuhin later accepted a life peerage with the title Lord Menuhin.

Tony O'Reilly, who holds both British and Irish nationality, uses the style "Sir", but has also gained approval from the Irish Government to accept the award as is necessary under the Irish Constitution. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the German soprano, became entitled to be known as "Dame Elisabeth" when she took British nationality. Irish-born Sir Terry Wogan was initially awarded an honorary knighthood, but by the time he collected the accolade from the Queen in December 2005, he had obtained dual nationality and the award was upgraded to a substantive knighthood.

Bob Geldof is often erroneously referred to as "Sir Bob"; he is not entitled to this style as an honorary knight as he is a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, which does not have the British sovereign as its Head of State.

There is no law in the UK preventing foreigners from holding a peerage (e.g. Newburgh), though only Commonwealth and Irish citizens may sit in the House of Lords. This has yet to be tested under the new arrangements. However, some other countries have laws restricting the acceptances of awards by foreign powers. In Canada, where the Canadian House of Commons has opposed the granting of titular honours with its Nickle Resolution, then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien advised the Queen not to grant Conrad Black a titular honour while he remained a Canadian citizen.