02 Feb 2012 19:25:19
A freedom of information request saw the list of people to have rejected an honour between 1951 and 1999 and since died published last night by the Cabinet Office . Literary names were prominent amongst those to have said no to CBEs, OBEs and knighthoods in the annual New Year or Birthday Honours list, with Dahl, Lewis, and Huxley – who turned down a knighthood – joined by fellow naysayers Eleanor Farjeon, the children's author, the poets Philip Larkin and Robert Graves, who said no to both a CBE and a CH (Order of the Companions honour), literary critic FR Leavis, Booker winner Stanley Middleton and the authors JB Priestley and Evelyn Waugh.
In the past, this information has generally only been made public if the individuals to have snubbed the recognition announce it themselves – a step taken by the poet Benjamin Zephaniah in 2003, when he wrote in the Guardian: "Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."
Novelist JG Ballard rejected a CBE for services to literature the same year, saying: "I think it's deplorable when left-wing playwrights like David Hare, who have worn their socialist colours on both sleeves for so many years, should accept a knighthood. God almighty, this man actually knelt down in front of the Queen."
Also included on the list of 277 individuals refusing honours between 1951 and 1999 are the sculptor Henry Moore, the artist Lucian Freud, the film director Alfred Hitchcock – although he later accepted a knighthood – and the painters Francis Bacon and LS Lowry. Lowry was the individual to have rejected recognition from the Queen the most often, turning down a total of five honours, including a knighthood.
