Honours Q&A
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Ask a plain-English question about UK honours - count an award (“how many MBEs are there?”), compare two (“is an MBE higher than an OBE?”), list who has received one, or define an award (“what is a Knight Bachelor?”) - and get a straight, factual answer pulled directly from Honoria’s records. Every answer shows its working - the awards it recognised, and the real people and records behind it - so you can check it for yourself. Ask your own question below, or start with an example.
Common questions about UK honours
Short reference answers to general questions, written by us. These are not produced by the tool above and do not come from the graph - for data-driven answers (counts, comparisons, recipients), ask a question at the top of the page.
What's the difference between an MBE, OBE and CBE?
They are three grades of the Order of the British Empire. CBE (Commander) is the most senior, then OBE (Officer), then MBE (Member). A CBE typically recognises a leading role of national significance, an OBE distinguished national or regional service, and an MBE outstanding achievement or service to the community.
Is a knighthood higher than a CBE?
Yes. A knighthood - whether a Knight Bachelor or a Knight or Dame Commander such as KBE or DBE - ranks above a CBE and carries the title Sir or Dame, which a CBE does not.
What does MBE stand for?
Member of the Order of the British Empire. The letters MBE are used after the recipient's name as post-nominal letters.
Who awards UK honours?
Honours are conferred by the Sovereign. Most are awarded on the advice of the government after assessment by independent honours committees; a few, such as the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit, are in the Sovereign's personal gift.
Can anyone be nominated for an honour?
Yes. Anyone can nominate a UK citizen for an honour, free of charge, through the Cabinet Office. Nominations are considered by an independent committee, and you cannot nominate yourself.
What's the difference between the Birthday and New Year Honours?
They are the two main honours lists published each year - the New Year Honours at the start of January, and the Birthday Honours in early summer to mark the Sovereign's official birthday. The same kinds of honours appear in both.
What is a Knight Bachelor?
The oldest and most basic form of British knighthood, not attached to any order of chivalry. A Knight Bachelor is styled Sir but, unusually, uses no post-nominal letters.
What are post-nominal letters?
The initials placed after a person's name to show an honour they hold, such as OBE, MBE or CBE. Knighthoods within an order also carry them (for example KBE), while a Knight Bachelor has none.
Can an honour be taken away?
Yes. An honour can be forfeited - for example after a serious criminal conviction or being struck off a professional register. Forfeiture is decided by the Honours Forfeiture Committee and announced in The Gazette.
What is the George Cross?
The highest award for gallantry not in the face of the enemy, and the civilian counterpart of the Victoria Cross. It was instituted in 1940 and carries the post-nominal letters GC.
How it works
Honoria answers questions about UK honours using only its own records.
- It identifies the awards in your question. Honoria holds a record of every honour - the MBE, OBE, George Cross and so on - and the post-nominal letters that follow a recipient’s name (such as
MBE). It matches those named in your question. - It retrieves the relevant records. For each award identified, it draws the figures and people from Honoria’s records: how many have been awarded, with example recipients.
- It composes the answer. Direct questions - how many, which ranks higher, who has received an award, what an award is - return a precise, fact-based reply. Open-ended questions are written up by an AI assistant (Claude), which may use only the records just retrieved.
Every answer draws solely on Honoria’s records. Open reasoning & provenance beneath any answer to see exactly which awards and recipients informed it. The AI assistant runs within a fixed daily budget and is guarded against automated misuse; if it is unavailable, Honoria returns the precise fact-based answer.
Technical detail
Under the hood this is a “GraphRAG” with no embeddings. The published SKOS honours vocabulary is used as a dictionary to recognise the awards named in your question, then the answer is built only from the records that matched - so it stays grounded in real data.
- Linking. Your question is matched to awards in the vocabulary by post-nominal (e.g.
MBE) or award name - no embeddings. - Retrieval. Each matched award resolves to its records in the committed read model (record counts and example recipients).
- Answer. The retrieved facts become a reply - either a deterministic template (per question type: count, compare, list, define), or, when the assistant is enabled, written by Claude Haiku using only those facts.
The Claude Haiku step is cost-capped and bot-guarded; a deterministic templated answer is the fallback when it is busy or over its daily limit. The same endpoint answers over HTTP (the public API returns the deterministic answer):
curl -s 'https://honoria.co.uk/api/ask?q=Is an MBE higher than an OBE?'
curl -s -XPOST https://honoria.co.uk/api/ask \
-d '{"question":"How many MBEs are there?"}'