'For Merit'--in medicine
Authors: H. White
Journal: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2002)

23 June 2002 is the centenary of the letters patent of the Order of Merit (OM). King Edward VII started the Order in the year of his coronation (1902) to honour those who, in his opinion, had


‘Rendered exceptional meritorious service: in our Navy, our Armed Forces or towards the advancement of Art, Literature and Science’.


The Prussian order Pour le Merite probably served as the model for the new honour. At any time there are only 24 members and there is no provision for expulsion. Honorary membership is now available to people from non-Commonwealth countries but only ten such awards have so far been made.

Those selected for the honour are chosen by the Sovereign without the assistance of either counsellors or ministers. Appointees now include all the Crown services, both military and civil. The OM remains the most exclusive British honour. Scientists form the largest group and every President of the Royal Society has, so far, been a member. Prime Ministers are also well represented—six from the UK, two from Canada (Lester Pearson and Mackenzie King) and one from South Africa (General Smuts). Lord Lister was in the first list, which also included the physicist Lord Kelvin. HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is the youngest to have been appointed, having received the honour on his 47th birthday.

Holders of the Order who are medically qualified or who have medical associations are listed in Box 1. In view of the growing interdependence of clinical and biological sciences I have included disciplines such as physiology, zoology and molecular chemistry. Alan Hodgkin and Dorothy Hodgkin were both members but genetics are not involved here because they were cousins by marriage. By contrast, the two Trevelyans, George Otto and George Macaulay, were father and son. Lord Adrian (Figure 1) is the only President of the Royal Society of Medicine to have been appointed OM. Unhappily, Florence Nightingale, the first female holder, was senile when she received the OM and never knew she had been so honoured. The most recent female members of the Order in the medical field are Dame Cicely Saunders and Mother Teresa. Robert Bridges, a Poet Laureate, was presumably recognized for his writing rather than his contribution to medicine.



Figure 1

Lord Adrian OM, President of the RSM 1950-1955 [Drawing by Edward I Halliday]





Box 1

OMs with medical training or medical connections



Only three people are known to have refused the Order—all writers. Rudyard Kipling refused twice, A E Housman and George Bernard Shaw once. Shaw imagined that posterity would either rank him with Shakespeare or he would be regarded as a clown; either way, the OM would be irrelevant.

The insignia is an eight-pointed cross bearing the words ‘For Merit’ with the Royal Cipher on the reverse (Figure 2). This simple badge of blue and red enamel is surmounted by an Imperial Crown and worn on a garter ribbon of blue and crimson. Crossed silver swords are added for military members.



Figure 2

Insignia of the OM, military (obverse) and civil (reverse)