Honours have been awarded with few exceptions on the sovereign's birthday since at least
1860, during the reign of
Queen Victoria. There was no Birthday Honours list issued in 1876, which brought "a good deal of disappointment" and even rebuke for the Ministry of Defence. A lengthy article in the
Broad Arrow newspaper forgave the Queen and criticised
Gathorne Hardy for neglecting to award worthy soldiers with the
Order of the Bath: "With the War Minister all general patronage of this description rests, and if Mr. Hardy has not seen fit to mark the occasion in the usual way, he alone can be blamed or praised for having neglected to follow in the beaten track of his predecessors." At the same time, it was noted that the Queen appeared to have issued her own honours by appointing the
Prince of Wales and the
Duke of Connaught to be her personal
aides-de-camp and the ailing King
George of Hanover to be a general in the British Army. The first birthday as king of her successor,
Edward VII (r. 1901–1910), fell on 9 November 1901. From 1959, the monarch's official birthday in the United Kingdom was moved to a Saturday in early June. Other Commonwealth realms celebrate the official birthday of the monarch on different dates (generally late May or early June); honours are awarded accordingly. The Birthday Honours were not issued on occasions when they coincided with Jubilee Honours in
1887 and
1897 and Coronation Honours in
1911,
1937, and
1953. The 2020 British Honours were postponed until the autumn because of the
COVID-19 pandemic. ==See also==