An honour capped at 24 living members, chosen by the monarch alone
Prime ministers have tried for over a century to steer appointments to the Order of Merit, and the palace has kept shutting them out. Edward VII created it in 1902, and it still admits no more than two dozen living people across the Commonwealth realms, each picked personally by the sovereign.
The idea took well over a century to land. Around 1773 George III floated an Order of Minerva for 24 artists and writers, with the motto that everything comes after knowledge, but intellectuals quarrelled so bitterly over who deserved it that he dropped the plan. Prince Albert discussed a civil order with Robert Peel in 1844, modelled on Prussia's Pour le Mérite, and in 1888 Lord Salisbury drafted a version with separate knighthoods for science and art. The president of the Royal Academy, Frederic Leighton, argued against it over how members would be selected.
Edward VII finally founded the order on 26 June 1902, the day originally set for his coronation. It recognised service in the navy and army as well as in art, literature and science, and its military division survives on paper, although nobody has held a place in it since Lord Mountbatten. The air force was added in 1935. After independence for the dominions, the honour stayed open to every realm and became part of several national systems.
Women were eligible from the start, and Florence Nightingale became the first female member in 1907. Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman and George Bernard Shaw all turned it down. Prince Philip, admitted in 1968 at 47, is still the youngest person ever inducted. Citizens of Commonwealth countries not headed by the British monarch can only be honorary members; Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa were two, and there have been none since Mandela died in December 2013.
The badge is a red enamel cross hung from a gold crown, with FOR MERIT in gold at its centre, on a red and blue ribbon. Since 1991 it must be handed back when the holder dies. Membership brings no formal place in Britain's order of precedence, yet historian Stanley Martin calls it the pinnacle of the British honours system.
Source: Order of Merit
