Why decline an obe

In most cases, the public only knows about the rejections due to a freedom of information request by the BBC in The system by which the Queen of England honors and knights various people is quite complex. Although there are other paths to knighthood , the most well-known is the Order of the British Empire, an honor bestowed by the Queen to those deemed worthy. David Bowie was a musical legend, known for his multi-stage career that spanned six decades.

Bowie was offered a CBE in , and a knighthood in , but turned them both down. Rickman turned down a CBE, although he never made his reasoning public.

Stephen Hawking is one of the greatest minds in human history, a renowned physicist and cosmologist who has contributed greatly to our understanding of the universe, particularly in the area of black holes.

Nighy turned down an OBE, but he has yet to reveal why he did so. Lewis rejected a CBE, but that fact was not discovered until long after his death. Some of his correspondence reveals that he felt the honor may be misunderstood in some way. Jim Broadbent said he was offered an OBE sometime in the s, but he didn't think it was right to accept it:. Besides, I like the idea of actors not being part of the Establishment.

If you mix the two together, things get blurry. Acclaimed actor Peter O'Toole was offered a knighthood in He reportedly declined for political reasons. Capaldi is shy to talk about it publicly, but he did turn down an OBE sometime in the s. Author Rudyard Kipling turned down the knighthood twice: once in , and again in His wife supposedly said that Kipling felt he could "do his work better without it.

He described the knighthood as "a disease which perpetuates snobbery. George Bernard Shaw was celebrated for his witty and thought-provoking plays. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in , but initially refused; that same impulse to avoid public honors was likely what caused him to turn down a knighthood, too.

Lowry is one of the most well-known English artists of the 20th century, known primarily for his depictions of life in small-town England. Of all the honors that the Queen of England bestows on her subjects, a knighthood is easily the most coveted. So what kind of person would turn down such a title? Surprisingly enough, many notables have done so. Here are some of them. Bowie turned down a knighthood in It's not what I spent my life working for.

Known for supporting various left-wing and humanitarian causes, she might have thought like many others that a knighthood would make her too much a part of the establishment. The artist, famous for paintings of the Lancashire industrial scene, turned down more honors from the Queen than any other individual — a total of five, including an OBE in , a CBE in and a knighthood in The Australian statesman turned down a knighthood in , when Australia was still a colony of Great Britain.

It seems that his refusal of a knighthood was due to a combination of humility he would turn down several honors and his preference for Australia becoming a republic, severing the last of its political links to the British Empire. Australia continued to award knighthoods conferred by the Crown after winning independence from Britain, even though many saw them as a remnant of the colonial past. Though it has still not become a republic, Australia finally stopped awarding knighthoods in There has been considerable reform to the honours system in the last 25 years to ensure it is inclusive.

There are no plans to change the names of any of the orders. The Hillsborough campaigner and academic Prof Phil Scraton rebuffed an OBE, saying successive governments had refused to take seriously the issues raised about the disaster and subsequent cover-up. Danny Boyle, the director and man behind the London Olympics opening ceremony, said he turned down a subsequent honour because he did not want to be seen as considered above the thousands of others involved in staging and planning the event.

The poet Benjamin Zephaniah rejected an OBE in , dismissing it as a legacy of colonialism and calling for clarity over the shocking circumstances over the death in custody of his cousin, Michael Powell.