State visits and The Gazette: Part 4 - British honours
Following the state visit of the American president earlier this year, in a ten-part series historian and honours expert Russell Malloch looks at the recent history of state visits in the UK. In this article, he explores the conferring of British honours to guests.
Chapters
While Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne, the programme for a state visit to the United Kingdom included four main elements, which were not always delivered in the same sequence, and were supplemented by a visit to the Queen Mother during her lifetime.
The plan for the first day of the first visit of the Queen’s reign in 1954 was designed to welcome King Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, and the ceremonial was reported in the Court Circular as including:
- an exchange of honours
- laying a wreath on the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey
- receiving addresses from the civic leaders of the cities of London and Westminster
- attendance at a state banquet
Exchange of honours
The exchange of honours between heads of state, and the award of decorations to members of the foreign suite, and other individuals connected with the visit, was often timed so that the relevant insignia could be worn at the state banquet.
The normal practice was for the sovereign to confer a high British honour on their guest, with lesser ranking awards for some or all of the members of the foreign suite. The visitor would reciprocate, by conferring a high foreign honour on the sovereign, and granting lesser honours to members of the British suite and royal household, and some of the other officials who helped to organise the various events that made up a state visit.
In 1954, the Court Circular explained that the Queen had conferred the Order of the Garter on the King of Sweden, but (in line with its usual reporting policy) the Circular provided no information about the other insignia that was presented on that occasion, for example the grand cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) that was given to the Swedish foreign minister, or the grand cross of the Victorian Order (GCVO) that was presented to the Swedish ambassador in London.
Head of State
Three main British honours were used for visiting heads of state:
- membership of the Order of the Garter (KG)
- appointment as a knight or dame grand cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB)
- award of the Royal Victorian Chain
The Garter was always limited to monarchs, while the GCB was the preferred option for presidents, and the Royal Victorian Chain was given to both royal and republican visitors.
The majority of countries complied with this system, although there were exceptions to the general rule, as the presidents of nations such as China, Russia and the United States of America neither gave nor received honours as part of a UK state visit. It was also the case that honours were not exchanged with the president of India, apart from the exceptional grant of the Order of Merit to Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan when he arrived in 1963.
No honours were given to some of the other presidents from former colonies, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in 1961, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania in 1975, and Daniel arap Moi and William Ruto of Kenya in 1979 and 2023. The position was variable, and so John Kufuor of Ghana accepted the GCB in 2007, as did President Moi when the Queen paid a state visit to Kenya in 1983.
The choice of honour was influenced by factors other than their royal or republican status, and in particular the British honours they already held before the state visit, as with King Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, who already held the GCB and Royal Victorian Chain by the time he landed at Westminster Pier in 1954.
During Elizabeth II’s reign, more than 40 heads of state had received an earlier British honour, sometimes in connection with a previous state visit. 15 visitors had received the grand cross of the Bath before being entertained by the Queen, and some had also been decorated with the Royal Victorian Chain.
The Royal Victorian Chain was occasionally used to supplement the GCB. That sequence began in 1957, when Francisco Lopes of Portugal, who already held the GCB from his trip to Buckingham Palace in 1955, was granted the Chain when the Queen paid a return visit to Lisbon. The Lopes precedent was followed with the Royal Victorian Chain being conferred during her return visits to three GCBs: Antonio Eanes of Portugal in 1985, Francois Mitterrand of France and Richard von Weizsacker of Germany in 1992.
The use of honours to supplement the grand cross was not uniform and there was, for example, no Royal Victorian Chain when the Queen paid return visits to presidents who already held the GCB, such as Eduardo Frei of Chile, Franz Jonas of Austria and Cevdet Sunay of Turkey.
A return visit was sometimes used to add the Garter, as happened when Queen Margrethe of Denmark received the Garter when she welcomed Elizabeth II to Copenhagen in 1979, while the Danish monarch added to the Royal Victorian Chain she received at Buckingham Palace in 1974. The Garter was also used to mark the sovereign’s visits to Stockholm, Madrid and Oslo as the guest of Carl Gustaf of Sweden, Juan Carlos of Spain and Harald of Norway.
American precedents
The Royal Victorian Chain was never given to a president other than during a state visit, while the civil grand cross of the Bath was rarely conferred in other circumstances. Two notable examples of a non-state visit GCB were the former American presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Senior. Reagan was the host when the Queen paid an official visit to the USA in 1983, and George Bush Senior received her in state in 1991. Neither president came in state to the United Kingdom, but in June 1989, a few months after leaving office, Ronald Reagan was invested with the insignia of a GCB during a private visit to Buckingham Palace, and George Bush received the same distinction in 1993, less than a year after he left the White House.
No other American president, or president of another nation, has been honoured by the British government with the civil GCB in the same way as former presidents Reagan and Bush.
The less exclusive grand cross of the Order of St Michael and St George was sometimes given to presidents during less formal visits, and a few added the GCB to an earlier GCMG, as happened with Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Arpad Goncz of Hungary and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa.
Some presidents received the GCMG as a political leader during an earlier state visit, as happened with Francesco Cossiga, who was the prime minister of Italy when he was made a GCMG in connection with the Queen’s state visit to President Alessandro Pertini in 1980. Cossiga later became the president of Italy and received the GCB when he was the Queen’s guest at Buckingham Palace in 1990.
Record of awards
The Gazette contains no record of the grant of British honours to any state visitors after the demise of Edward VII in 1910, in line with the general policy of not gazetting honorary awards.
A few state visit honours were, however, gazetted during Edward’s reign, starting with the Royal Victorian Chain in 1905 for King Alfonso of Spain (Gazette issue 27803), who was already a knight of the Garter and grand cross of the Victorian Order. Garter notices also appeared in the Gazette for Kings Haakon of Norway and Manuel of Portugal in connection with their 1906 and 1909 state visits to Windsor (Gazette issue 27965), and the first republican Royal Victorian Chain, which was conferred on Armand Fallieres of France, was gazetted in 1908 (Gazette issue 28141).
Since at least 2008, the British Foreign Office has published an annual list of the honorary awards to foreign nationals that were approved by the sovereign. Unfortunately, the data is incomplete and inaccurate, for example by excluding the state visit honours for the Emperor of Japan, the Emir of Qatar, and members of their suites from the 2024 list.
Foreign recipients
In the context of inward state visits, the GCMG was usually assigned to the senior member of the foreign suite, and so it was a relatively common award for the foreign minister, starting with Bo Osten Unden of Sweden in 1954. Some notable recipients of an inward GCMG were Robert Schuman and Maurice Couve de Murville of France, who accompanied Presidents Auriol in 1950 and de Gaulle in 1960. The GCMG was also given to the German foreign minister and vice chancellor Walter Scheel in 1972, six years before he gained the senior GCB as his nation’s president, during the Queen’s state visit to Germany.
One of the most exclusive distinctions in this setting was membership of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH), which was conferred on only two members of a foreign suite. Nuri es Said, the Iraqi prime minister, was invested during King Faisal’s visit in 1956, while Paul Spaak, the Belgian foreign minister was given the CH insignia when he arrived in 1963. In both cases, the recipient was already a GCMG, an honour that was allocated to Spaak during for King Leopold’s state visit in 1937, as did Nuri es Said during a trip to London in 1955.
The state visit process has accounted for most of the honorary appointments to the Royal Victorian Order since the end of the second world war. The Gazette reported some early awards for the foreign suite, and other individuals who played a role in the visit, starting in 1903 when the GCVO was given to Abel Combarieu, the secretary general to President Loubet, and General Dubois, the chief of the Military Household (Gazette issue 27575). The grand cross was usually given to the guest’s representative in London, as happened with the Swedish ambassador when King Gustaf Adolf visited the Queen in 1954.
The distribution of honours was generally linked to the rank or precedence of the individual, as in 1971 when Emperor Hirohito of Japan’s state visit brought the GCVO for the grand chamberlain, the grand master of ceremonies, the grand steward of the imperial household and the Japanese ambassador in London. In addition, 25 awards at the level of KCVO to MVO were approved for other members of the foreign suite, and the staff of the Japanese embassy, including an LVO for the interpreters who supported the emperor and his wife.
Home recipients
The general rule was that British honours were not to be conferred on the British suite and the other home officials who did much of the planning work. There were no substantive appointments to the Order of St Michael and St George or the Victorian Order for any members of the royal household, or other personnel, who helped to organise the ceremonial, and delivered the transport, accommodation, catering, security and other provisions that were needed for a state visit.
This had not always been the case, for in Edward VII’s time the GCVO was given to the British envoys at the time of the Portuguese state visits of 1903 and 1909, and when the King of Greece came to Windsor in 1905 (Gazette issue 27589), but The Gazette shows that:
- the distribution of honours during Elizabeth II’s reign followed the “no home honours” rule for inward visits.
- a different practice applied for outward visits.
As regards outward visits, The Gazette indicates that the Victorian Order was routinely conferred on the ambassador and other officials, but not on the members of the Queen’s travelling suite, such as her equerry and medical officer.
Examples of “outward awards” include Antony Acland, who gained his KCVO as the ambassador during a state visit to Luxembourg in 1976, and the GCVO as ambassador to Washington when the Queen visited President Bush (Gazette issue 52557). Among the other staff who received double awards in connection with an outward visit was John Garner, who gained the LVO in 1979 as deputy high commissioner in Malawi (Gazette issue 47989), and promotion to CVO as consul general at Houston during the Bush visit.
Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III
Succession to the Crown is essential reading for anyone with a keen interest in the British royal family and provides an excellent and trusted source of information for historians, researchers and academics alike. The book takes you on a journey exploring the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy, from the demise of King Charles II in 1685, through to the accession of King Charles III, as recorded in The London Gazette.
Historian Russell Malloch tells the story of the Crown through trusted, factual information found in the UK's official public record. Learn about the traditions and ceremony engrained in successions right up to the demise of Queen Elizabeth II and the resulting proclamation and accession of King Charles III.
Available to order now from the TSO Shop.
About the author
Russell Malloch is a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society and an authority on British honours. He authored Succession to the Crown: From Charles II to Charles III, which explores the coronations, honours and emblems of the British monarchy.
See also
Demise of the Crown: #1: An introduction
Find out more
Succession to the Crown: - From Charles II to Charles III (TSO shop)
Images
- Portrait photograph of King Gustav VI Adolf in army uniform. (Swedish Air Force Museum)
- Photograph of President Ronald Reagan walking alongside Queen Elizabeth II through the Quadrangle of Windsor Castle. On the right walks Nancy Reagan and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The President and Nancy Reagan were visiting Windsor Castle where they were guests of the Queen during their private visit to the United Kingdom. (Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2026)
- Order of St Michael & St George. Star. Belonged to Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge. (Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2026)
- The Gazette
Publication date
20 January 2026
Any opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and the author alone, and does not necessarily represent that of The Gazette.