The Order of the Bath celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2025. The final instalment in a four-part series, honours expert Russell Malloch looks at The Gazette’s reporting of events during the last century of the Order.

The Order of the Bath celebrates its three hundredth anniversary in 2025. The order was instituted in 1725 and now provides the highest honour that can be conferred by the United Kingdom government; an honour that is routinely granted to the most senior members of the armed forces and civil service, and to foreign heads of state. This series of four articles deals with the creation of the order during the reign of the Hanoverian king George I, and its evolution over the next 300 years.

This final article in the series considers the events The Gazette has recorded during the order’s third century, including:

• the honours for operations referred to in the recent Gazette reports about the 80th anniversary of VE Day, including the Battle of Britain and the Normandy landings
• the use of the order by dominion governments
• the admission of women
• the proposals to abolish or reform the order
• the increase in the civil membership

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Constitution

No major changes to the structure of the order were made during the third century of the Order of the Bath (1926-2025), while special statutes allowed for additional members to be admitted for various reasons, such as the war against Nazi Germany, post-war operations in theatres such as Korea and Vietnam, and the coronations of 1937 and 1953 (but not 2023).

The altered relationship between the United Kingdom and the dominions that emerged from the Statute of Westminster had an impact on the grant of dignities and led to awards being based on the advice of some overseas governments. The process began with the military division in the 1940s, when officers were recommended by ministers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, and were treated as ordinary rather than honorary members. South Africa withdrew from the regime in 1946, followed by Canada in 1952, while dominion awards continued in Australia until 1982 (Gazette issue 49213), and ended after the last New Zealand recommendations were gazetted in 1995 (Gazette issue 54256).

The increased role of women in senior positions in the civil service and armed forces was reflected in the distribution process. The Gazette noted the first female awards in 1971, starting with a military CB for Brigadier Barbara Gordon of the Nursing Corps, and a civil CB for Jean Nunn, a deputy secretary at the Cabinet Office (Gazette issue 45262). The first woman to join the second class (DCB), was Mildred Riddelsdell, a permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Security. More than 240 women have joined since 1971, amounting to 7% of the awards that have been gazetted since Brigadier Gordon’s CB.

The promotion policy was altered after the 1960s, as many KCBs were appointed directly to the second class, rather than typically advancing from CB. Promotion continued to be the main route to the GCB, with rare exceptions, as with Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer at the Department of Health and Social Care, who was only a DBE when she became the first ordinary dame grand cross in 2019 (Gazette issue 62866).

No new orders emerged during this period that shared a function with the Bath, in contrast to what had happened when the Orders of St Michael and St George and the British Empire were extended for military use. The Bath and British Empire continued to work in parallel from the mid-1920s, with the military GBE being used to supplement the KCB for officers such as Engineer Vice Admiral Sir Harold Brown in 1939, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach in 2015.

Reforms

The Bath survived reviews and reforms during the second half of this period, when the role of the order, and its religious dimension, came under public scrutiny. In the 1960s, the Wilson government decided that the proportion of honours for home civil service and the diplomatic and defence services was “higher than that which normally goes to those in other walks of life”, and in 1967 the prime minister announced that “the proportion of honours awarded to state servants should be reduced over a period”.

The Bath was generally allowed to function as before, and the order was not opened to candidates who were not crown servants. Then in 1993, the Major government ended recommending awards “where they are given solely by seniority or on appointment” and stated that “there should be no assumption that honours will automatically be attached to particular posts in either the public or the private sector”.

It was also announced that “these principles should be applied throughout the civil service and the rest of the public sector” and would extend to the foreign service and armed forces. The rank-based system for gallantry awards was ended, and a more open process for nominating people to receive honours was introduced, but rank continued to play a role in the allocation of places in the Bath, and the public nominations process was not extended to the order.

A more significant challenge came in 2004, when the Public Administration Select Committee of the House of Commons recommended “the end to further appointments to the […] Order of the Bath and the Order of St Michael and St George”, which were “almost exclusively conferred on state servants”. The two orders were saved by the Blair government, which did not think the case had been made for consigning them “to the category of obsolescence” and found “no good argument for abandoning orders with distinguished traditions which, in their own way, serve to recognise the distinctive ways in which members of the public service have served the Crown”.

The most recent Cabinet Office report into the operation of the honours system was published in 2023, and suggested that the Bath was safe from interference, at least for the time being, as most of the government’s energy as regards the award of honours was directed towards promoting diversity and inclusion.

Membership of the Bath has shifted from being mainly military to largely civil in its composition, for reasons that owe more to the growth in the home civil service and reduction in the armed forces than to the Wilson and Major announcements of 1967 and 1993. In the first quarter of this period (1926-50) 29% of awards related to the civil division, then 37% in the second quarter (1951-75), and to just under 80% in each of the last two quarters (1976-2025).

Appointment

Almost 7,000 individuals were gazetted as new members of the order during its third century, and 1,400 promotions were made to KCB or GCB. The Gazette recorded rare moves from companion to grand cross in the military division without an intermediate KCB, as with General Claude Auchinleck in 1945 and Air Chief Marshal Robert Alcock in 1995. A few civilians advanced from CB to GCB in the same period, as in the case of Alexander Johnston, the chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, and William Murrie, the permanent secretary at the Scottish Office.

Appointments were very rarely cancelled, other than during the Second World War. In 1940 persons of German or Italian nationality were removed from the list of honorary members (Gazette issue 34929), followed by a similar measure in 1942 for members from Japan and other enemy states (Gazette issue 35471). More recently, The Gazette of 2013 reported that the civil CB was removed from Vicky Pryce, a government economist, after she was jailed for perverting the course of justice (Gazette issue 60583).

Military Division

The majority of notices from the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood relating to military division awards were gazetted in the twice-yearly honours lists, while there were separate listings for inter-war operations on the North West Frontier of India, as well as in Iraq, Southern Kurdistan, and Palestine.

The number of honours for services during the Second World War were smaller than for the war against Imperial Germany, and The Gazette did not return to the Victorian practice of publishing a despatch at the same time as the related honours were announced. There was also no use of the Order of St Michael and St George for the war of 1939-45, and instead the British Empire provided a junior award.

The naval candidates include the first KCB of the war, Rear Admiral Henry Harwood, who was honoured for his attack on the cruiser Admiral Graf Spee during the battle of the River Plate in 1939 (Gazette issue 34759). Later awards include recognition for services with the Malta convoys, the destruction of the German battleship Scharnhorst, and the landings at Salerno. The war-time naval GCBs include the first sea lord, Andrew Cunningham, and Bruce Fraser who was decorated in 1944 after sinking the Scharnhorst. Louis Mountbatten gained the CB in 1943 as a captain and acting admiral, followed by promotion to KCB in 1945 as the supreme allied commander in South East Asia, with the GCB in 1955 when he was first sea lord.

The first army awards from the fight against Nazi Germany were gazetted in July 1940 (Gazette issue 34893), and included a KCB for Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke, who later became the chief of the Imperial General Staff, and the CB for officers such as Bernard Montgomery who gained fame at the battle of Alamein, and Richard O’Connor who received a KCB in 1941 after defeating the Italian army in North Africa, but later became a prisoner of war, and ended his career as the adjutant general and a GCB.

The GCB was granted to officers such as Lord Gort, who commanded the British Expeditionary Force at the start of the war, and to Harold Alexander and Archibald Wavell who directed operations in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Bath was also conferred on the officers whose despatches were noticed in The Gazette’s commemoration of the 80^th anniversary of VE day, in which Hugh Dowding dealt with the Battle of Britain, Bertram Ramsay reported on the Normandy landings, and Guy Garrod described the part played by the air force in the final stages of the Mediterranean campaign.

As regards the links between those officers and the Bath, Dowding started with the CB in 1928 and gained the grand cross in 1940, while at the head of Fighter Command (Gazette issue 34964). Admiral Ramsay became a CB before the war, and was promoted to knight commander in 1940 for organising the Dunkirk evacuation, and received the KBE in 1943 for the allied invasion of Sicily. He would probably have gained further recognition, had he survived a plane crash a few months before VE day.

Air Chief Marshal Garrod was noticed with the CB and KCB during the war, and received the rare honour of a military GBE in 1948, while the other war-time air force nominations include Charles Portal, the chief of the Air Staff, and Arthur Tedder for his work in the Middle East, who both received the GCB in 1942, and Arthur Harris of Bomber Command who progressed from CB in 1940 to grand cross in 1945.

The Gazette reported the use of the Bath after the allied invasion that led to Hitler’s defeat, and awards for officers in theatres such as East Africa, Burma, New Guinea and an unusual posthumous CB for Brigadier Claude Nicholson for his defence of Calais in 1940, which was gazetted in 1945, and dated to the day before he died in captivity in 1943 (Gazette issue 37274).

Canada used the Bath during the war for men who, for policy reasons, were unable to accept an honour that involved the use of the prefix ‘Sir’. The first awards on the advice of the Ottawa ministers were gazetted in 1943, when the CB was given to men of ‘KCB rank’, including Lieutenant-General Henry Crerar (Gazette issue 35842). The last Canadian appointment was gazetted in 1952, when Brigadier John Rockingham was made a CB for his work in Korea (Gazette issue 39569).

The Australian nominations began with Major-General Francis Derham in 1944, and with later awards for operations, particularly in the South West Pacific. The last military grant based on Canberra’s advice was given to Major-General Donald Dunstan in 1972 for services in Vietnam (Gazette issue 45833), after which the Bath was replaced by the Order of Australia.

The New Zealand government’s military nominations also began to be gazetted in 1944, with regular post-war awards from Wellington for the chiefs of the Air, General and Naval Staffs, ending with a CB for Rear-Admiral John Welch in 1995 (Gazette issue 54256), after which the Bath was overtaken by the Order of Merit, which was instituted by the queen of New Zealand in 1996.

A handful of military appointments were gazetted on the advice of the governments of Ghana, India, Pakistan, and Rhodesia and Nyasaland, between 1950 and 1961, while the Bath was used for the Suez operations, and work connected with civil unrest in Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya and elsewhere. The Bath did not feature in the operational lists for Northern Ireland, but was used for the Falklands campaign in 1982, when the KCBs included Major-General Jeremy Moore of the Royal Marines (Gazette issue 49134).

The honour was deployed for the Gulf War of 1991, and for operations in Iraq and Yugoslavia, while Afghanistan provided Bath appointments, including a KCB in 2007 for Lieutenant-General David Richards (Gazette issue 58396), who was the successor to the many officers who joined the Bath after serving in Afghan campaigns in the 1840s and 1870s, and following the First World War.

Civil Division

The majority of civil awards were also announced by the Central Chancery and gazetted as part of the routine bi-annual honours list process. Appointments continued to relate mainly to public work in the United Kingdom and were normally allocated to officers who were responsible for the larger departments such as the Treasury, and the Ministry of Defence and its Admiralty, Air Ministry and War Office predecessors. The growth in civil appointments has already been mentioned, with awards reflecting the seniority of the individual, and the GCB usually being restricted to the permanent secretary grade, or its equivalent.

The names in The Gazette reflected the evolution of the home departments, as awards for officials from the old ministries of Civil Aviation, Fuel and Power, and Labour were followed by personnel from 21^st century departments such as Energy Security and Net Zero, and Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities.

The Bath was occasionally used for royal purposes, to supplement the Victorian Order, although no family civil knight grand cross was created after 1927, when the honour was granted to the Marquess of Carisbrooke, the last surviving grandson of Queen Victoria. As for household awards, the Bath was always allocated to the sovereign’s private secretary, who played an important role within the honours system, and provided a link between the sovereign and the prime minister. The GCB was conferred on private secretaries ranging from Clive Wigram in 1933 (Gazette issue 33946), to more recent holders of that position such as Christopher Geidt in 2017 (Gazette issue 62150) and Edward Young in 2023 (Gazette issue 64068).

The other household nominees include Frederick Ponsonby, who helped to develop the British honours system for many years before he gained the GCB in 1926, and Edward Ford who was made a KCB as the assistant private secretary, and wrote the “annus horribilis” letter the late Queen referred to in 1992, in a speech to mark the 40^th anniversary of her succession to the crown.

There were policy changes affecting the distribution of awards in the 1940s. One led to the GCB no longer being granted to senior diplomats, a practice that was last observed in 1941, when the grand cross was given to Sir Eric Phipps, after the conclusion of his embassy to France.

The provision for civil awards being conferred on officers of the Territorial Army and the reserve forces, which had evolved since the 1880s, was discontinued when the statutes were revised in 1948. Up until then, The Gazette had regularly announced Bath appointments for officials in those organisations, and a few promotions from military CB to civil KCB, as with Bertram Portal who received the CB in 1917 for services during the Easter Rising in Ireland, and the KCB in 1937 as chairman of Hampshire’s Territorial Army Association (Gazette issue 34365).

The careers of Frank Smith and Hayden Phillips illustrate the typical use of the civil Bath during this period:

• Smith became a CB in 1926 while director of scientific research at the Admiralty, and was promoted to KCB as secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and then to GCB in 1942 as controller of communications equipment. His warrant of appointment and coat of arms, containing the Bath’s emblems, were illustrated in an earlier Gazette article, which dealt with the link between the Bath and prime ministers such as Sir Keir Starmer, who received his KCB in 2013 as the director of Public Prosecutions (Gazette issue 60728).
• Phillips received the CB in 1989 while a deputy secretary at the Treasury and was promoted to KCB in 1997 as permanent secretary of the department of Culture, Media and Sport, and then to grand cross in 2002 as permanent secretary of the Lord Chancellor’s Department.

Phillips later played an active role in the use of the Bath, as the permanent secretary at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, with special responsibility for the honours system, on behalf of the Cabinet secretary. Sir Hayden’s review of the process for awarding dignities was published in 2004, when he noted that the range of honours could be confusing and thought it would be simpler to have a single award, but concluded “that the essential thrust of reform should be to the system by which awards are made, and not the awards themselves. The orders and awards in this country are part of its rich history and, in my view, that more than outweighs some effort in understanding them.” His views were at variance with those of the House of Commons committee, but they were accepted by the Blair government and may have helped to protect the Bath from extinction, just as it entered the closing stages of its third century.

The military division had been made available to dominion ministers since the 1940s, but the civil division was not used by any Commonwealth government until 1975, when the New Zealand ministers gave a CB to Ian Lythgoe, the chairman of the State Services Commission (Gazette issue 46446). The first Australian civil CB for public services was gazetted in 1979, and awards were made by the states of Queensland and Tasmania in the 1980s. The last of the ‘overseas’ awards were gazetted in 1995, after which the civil Bath was superseded by indigenous orders.

On the honorary front, the main use of the civil division was the presentation of the insignia to foreign heads of state, as the GCB was the highest honour that was in the gift of the United Kingdom government, rather than the sovereign. The awards were not gazetted.

This form of distinction was used in the 1950s, for example, when the grand cross was given to Presidents Auriol of France, Lopes of Portugal and Gronchi of Italy on arriving at Buckingham Palace at the start of their state visit. The GCB was seldom deployed outside of the state visit circuit, with exceptional awards being granted to presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush of the United States of America. The last honorary civil GCB to be conferred before the order’s 300^th anniversary was granted to President Mattarella of Italy, who was invested by King Charles III during his state visit to Rome in April 2025.

Administration

The office of great master was held by four individuals during the Bath’s third century. Arthur, Duke of Connaught retained the role until his death in 1942, when he was followed by Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1942-74), Charles, Prince of Wales (1974-2022), and William, Prince of Wales (since 2024). The grants of dignities within the order (often referred to as the warrants of appointment) usually bear the signature, or an autopen facsimile, showing the names Arthur, Henry, Charles or William.

The layout of the warrants was altered in the 1920s, when the Victorian style of double-sided document gave way to a single page of text, which continued to be signed by the sovereign and great master, and was validated with the 1847 pattern seal.

The officers did not change during the order’s third century, with the dean of Westminster continuing to fill the same role as he did when the Bath was established in 1725. The king of arms was always a GCB and an officer of four-star rank (admiral/general/air chief marshal). The registrar and secretary, and the usher of the scarlet rod, were two-star officers, and members of the military division, even after the shift in favour of civil awards. The deputy secretary’s position remained linked to the office of secretary of the Central Chancery, while the genealogist has always been a member of the College of Arms.

Privileges

The titles that could be assumed by the KCBs and GCBs were altered in 1965, when it was announced that “[p]rovision is being made […] in the statutes of the Order of the Bath […] so that knights grand cross and knights commander on official publication of their appointments will forthwith assume the knighthood prefix. The appointments will require completion subsequently by investiture and presentation of the insignia.” (Gazette issue 43677)

This meant that, unless they already enjoyed that right (which they often did), recipients of the first and second classes could use the prefix “Sir” from the time their appointment was gazetted, rather than from the date they received the honour of knighthood.

Ceremonial

Investitures were routinely performed by the sovereign, or a senior member of the royal family, at Buckingham Palace or one of the other principal royal residences and followed the customary pattern of the person being knighted (if appropriate) and presented with the insignia. Recipients who attended investitures were routinely listed in the Court Circular, until that practice was ended in September 1940, and not revived after the war.

A few ceremonies took place at unusual locations, as in 1939 when Sir Ronald Lindsay, the ambassador to the USA, received his GCB insignia on the royal train in North America, and in 1944 when Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey was invested in the field by the King, a few months after the Normandy landings. An interesting ceremony was held in 1946 when Rear Admiral Thomas Troubridge received his KCB badge and star, as his great-grandfather, grandfather and father had been gazetted as military CBs in 1838, 1855 and 1911, providing one of many examples of the family connections that existed within the Bath.

Installation services continued to be organised, with events in Westminster Abbey in 1928 and 1935, but then war intervened, and the next installation was delayed until 1951. During Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, the services were held at intervals of around four years, with notable events in 1972 when President Heinemann of West Germany, GCB, attended, and in 1975 when the 250^th anniversary was celebrated, and the Prince of Wales was installed as great master.

A new type of service was introduced in 2018, when some of the GCBs, including Hayden Phillips, took the oath in Westminster Abbey, but were not installed. This change to the order’s ceremonial was only extended to a selection of the GCBs who chose to engage in this new form of Christian ritual. A few of the ‘oath takers’ were later installed, as with General Lord Dannatt who took the oath in 2018, and was installed in 2022.

Another change was made in 2025, when the wording of the oath was revised, and the knights swore to defend “the innocent, the vulnerable, and orphans in their rights”, while for the last 300 years they had promised to defend “maidens, widows and orphans”. This departure from what Hayden Phillips described as part of the country’s “rich history” reflected a change in the status of women in society, although the underlying oath retained its emphasis on Christian belief.

The Bath was represented at several royal events during this period, including the procession of the officers of the orders of knighthood at the coronations of 1937 and 1953, but not in 2023, as that section of the ceremony was discontinued. Three representatives of the Bath, one from each class, took part in the procession at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in Westminster Abbey in 2022.

Insignia

The main development in the insignia during this period came in the 1970s, with the production of a reduced size of collar, badge and star to be worn by the women, and with the civil CB and DCB badges being attached to a riband that was fashioned into a bow and attached to the left chest, rather than being displayed around the neck.

At about the same time, the GCBs were permitted to wear their badge from a reduced width of riband around the neck, as well as from the conventional broad riband or sash. This change in practice was seen in 2025 when the grand cross badge was worn as a neck decoration by President Mattarella of Italy, whereas presidents Ramaphosa of South Africa and Yoon of South Korea used the more familiar broad riband at their state banquets in 2022-23.

Legacy

The history of the Order of the Bath is preserved today in Westminster Abbey, where the banners of some of the current GCBs hang, and the heraldic plates of past and present members are set in the stalls in King Henry VII’s Chapel.

There are reminders of some of the GCBs in the flags that were removed from Westminster Abbey after their demise and now hang in local churches around the United Kingdom, as with the banner of Field-Marshal Douglas Haig which was placed in St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh in 1929.

The most tangible legacy of the Bath, which extends to all classes of the order, rather than the Westminster display, with its inevitable emphasis on the GCBs, consists of two elements:

• The insignia that was presented to members, which can be found today in museums and public collections throughout the United Kingdom and represents a wide range of services to the nation.
• The records of more than 18,000 appointments to, and promotions in, the Most Honourable Order of the Bath that have appeared in The Gazette since 1725.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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.

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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

VE Day and The Gazette - 80th anniversary

The Order of The Bath: Prime ministerial K.C.B.s

The Order of the Garter and Queen Elizabeth

Demise of the Crown: An introduction

How to search The Gazette

Find out more

Succession to the Crown: - From Charles II to Charles III (TSO shop)

Images

Národní museum

Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2025

Imperial War Museum

National Portrait Gallery

Old Town Tourist / Alamy Stock Photo

The Gazette

Publication date

12 June 2025

Any opinion expressed in this article is that of the author and the author alone, and does not necessarily represent that of The Gazette.