TITLES NOT WANTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 August 1941, Page 8

TITLES NOT WANTED

SOME HISTORIC EXAMPLES.

The announcement that the new Solicitor General for Scotland has been given permission to resume the name and designation of “Thomas David King Murray, Esq.. K.C.,” in spite of his having been known as Lord Murray when chairman of the Scottish Land Court, recalls—contrariwise— an amusing controversy on this side of the Border, says the “Manchester Guardian.” In 1873 Henry James and William Harcourt, Esquires, were appointed Attorney General and Solicitor General respectively. Both declared that they would not willingly be knighted in the invariable custom. Nevertheless, they had to yield. Harcourt wrote to Mrs Ponsonby: “I am on Friday next at Windsor, to undergo the last humiliation of being made a knight. I went down ,on my knees to Gladstone and asked him how he would like it himself, but he was inexorable. I think he had a malicious joy in thus punishing me for all my past sins Never mind, I will be even with him yet and make him. a lord. It is horribly vulgar, almost as bad as being a baronet —but it can’t be helped.” Gladstone had explained that knighthoods were attached to certain high offices in order to keep up the prestige of the order. “Then you’d better take a knighthood yourself,” said Harcourt. He indemnified himself to some extent by refusing to pay Garter's customary fees and the matter was settled by a small compromise payment.