The Queen's Birthday Honours (or King's Birthday Honours) is a part of the British honours system, being a civic occasion on the celebration of the Queen's Official Birthday in which new members of most Commonwealth Realms honours are named. The awards are presented by the reigning monarch or head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth II. All Royal honours conferred by Her Majesty are made official by publication in supplements to the London Gazette. The lists are also published by the quality broadsheet newspapers, most notably The Times. Honours have been awarded on the monarch's birthday since at least the 9 of November 1908, the birthday of King Edward VII (1901–1910). After that year the monarch's official birthday was moved to the first, second or third Saturday in June (for the UK), on which date the Birthday Honours lists have subsequently been published. Other Commonwealth Realms celebrate Queen's Birthday on different dates (generally late May or early June), and release their honours lists on different dates accordingly.
Read more about Queen's Birthday Honours: Birthday Honours Lists
Famous quotes containing the words queen, birthday and/or honours:
“Oh Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“I was supposed to retire when I was seventy-two years old, but I was seventy-seven when I retired. On my seventy-sixth birthday a lady had triplets. It was quite a birthday present.”
—Josephine Riley Matthews (b. 1897)
“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)