An ‘imperial hangover’? Royal Honours in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, 1917–2009

Abstract

New Zealand ceased to award the titles of ‘Sir’ and ‘Dame’ in 2000, joining Australia and Canada in what looked like the end of a process of change that all three countries had been implementing in their honours systems over the twentieth century, albeit at varying speeds. In each case, imperial British honours had been gradually discarded in favour of homegrown national ones, and the practice of conferring knighthoods and damehoods had ceased. In 2009, however, New Zealand's newly elected National government announced that titles were to be reinstated. While not a restoration of imperial honours in place of the country's relatively young national ones, the move put New Zealand out of step with Australia and Canada in terms of honours. This article traces the shifting relationships that Australia, New Zealand and Canada had with imperial honours over the twentieth century, and the steps by which each moved away from British honours towards their own national systems. In all three settings, changes were accompanied by debates over nationalism, independence and the endurance of historic ties to Britain. Through the case study of honours, this article offers a contribution to scholarly consideration of the process of de-dominionisation and the end of empire in the British World, and of the new nationalism that arose alongside and as part of that process.