In the UK it seems to be quite the thing for the Queen to elevate prominent industrialists, business magnates, and artists to life peerages in honor of their accomplishments. It’s probably only a matter of time before we start hearing of Lord McCartney of Liverpool and Hamburg. However, while Canada and Australia are, technically speaking, reigned over by the Queen, we never hear of anyone in those countries being ennobled or knighted. Why isn’t Rupert Murdoch, for example, Lord Murdoch of Sydney or something like that? Do Australians or Canadians ever get ennobled but we don’t hear about it? Or do those countries have laws that prevent it? Or, is it not done for some other reason?
As for Canada, in 1919, the Canadian House of Commons passed the Nickle Resolution, which said that Canadians weren’t allowed to accept knighthoods or hereditary titles.
The highest honourarium awardable to a Canadian by the government of Canada is the “Order of Canada” medal. Looking at a list of recipients though, it would seem somewhat less prestigious than it should be.
Prior to that date, though, Max Aitken of Newcastle, N.B., was ennobled for a wide range of reasons, including his contributions to the political aspect of fighting World War I, as well as his status as a prominent Liberal newspaper owner (the Daily Express, and the reference is to the Liberal Party), as Lord Beaverbrook.
In past years Australians were given peerages. Stanley Bruce, a former Prime Minister, was created *Viscount Bruce of Melbourne and Westminster * in 1947. Australians used also to be given imperial honours in the form of knighthoods, damehoods etc. Another former PM and arch-royalist, Sir Robert Menzies, was made a Knight of the Thistle.
The awarding of English imperial honours has now pretty much come to a complete stop, inspired by a combination of egalitarianism, republican feelings and perceived irrelevancy. An Australian honours system, known as the Order of Australia, now operates. When constituted, it did have provision for knighthoods, but these have since been abolished. Nowadays the Order of Australia confers no title on the recipient, other than the appropriate letters after his name.
Actually, after that date a few Canadians were knighted, most notably Frederick Banting, who discovered insulin, under the Bennett administration. Bennett would actually go on to move to Britain and become enobled himself.
But after him, that practice stopped. In fact, just recently, Conrad Black had to give up his Canadian citizenship to become a baron.
The Queen herself indicated that she thought it more appropirate that she stop giving honours to Australian subjects, in 1990. By that time, Australian governments had pretty much stopped nominating recipients anyway.
Even Americans can be knighted, even though our laws prohibit us from using the titles, or at least they stipulate that the titles have no significance–this being the Land Of The Free I imagine we can call ourselves anything we wish. Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense in Reagan’s cabinet, was knighted by the Queen, as was P.G. Wodehouse shortly before his death in 1975. Wodehouse had long since become a naturalized American citizen.
Well, there was Earl Mountbatten of Burma. I don’t think the territorial designations are meant to imply dominion either by the monarch or by the recipient of the title. From what I gather, new peers often seem to choose a territorial designation that has something to do with what they accomplished, as I assume Lord Burma did.
