‘A Pernicious System of Caste and Privilege’: Egalitarianism and Official Honours in Australia, New Zealand and Canada

It is commonplace to assert that egalitarianism has been a cherished value in Australian history, and a founding tenet of Australian society. This article explores one example where the rhetoric of egalitarianism shaped public debate over an official institution, the honours system. Exploring the intersection of the ideal of egalitarianism with contests over honours in Australia, Canada and New Zealand over more than a century, it reveals how different understandings of the concept of egalitarianism were employed in the service of arguments both for and against titular honours such as knighthood. It also finds that, in efforts to reform honours systems inherited from Britain, the language of egalitarianism was shared across these three former settler colonies, returning full circle to inflect British debates about the future of honours in the twenty-first century. This article has been peer-reviewed.