Evolution of the South African honours system

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An overview of the South African honours system.

1 1894-1952
2 1952-2002
3 2002–
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] 1894-1952

The British honours system became applicable to South Africa as colonial rule was established in the region during the nineteenth century. From the 1870s onwards, colonial politicians and other public figures featured in the semi-annual honours lists, and during colonial wars and the Anglo-Boer War, the colonial military forces received decorations from the British government.

From 1894, the colonial governments were allowed to award military long service medals themselves. This system continued after the colonies became the Union of South Africa in 1910, and after World War I the Union government extended it to create entirely new medals, for Anglo-Boer War veterans (in 1920), the prisons department (in 1922), the police (in 1923), and the railways police (in 1934).

After South Africa had become independent as a dominion in 1931, the British monarchs, in their capacity as South African head of state, instituted royal medals for the police in 1937, and for civilians and the defence force in 1939.

This arrangement lasted until 1952.

[edit] 1952-2002

In 1952, to mark the 300th anniversary of European settlement, the South African government established its own honours system. It consisted of the existing civil, police, railways police and prisons medals, and a new series of military decorations. They were given precedence over British honours.

The honours system was enlarged during the 1960s, after South African had become a republic. New decorations were instituted for the police in 1963, for the railways police in 1966, for sports stars in 1967, for the prisons service in 1968, and for civilians in 1970.

Evidently the government was not satisfied, because during the 1970s and 1980s, it virtually re-created the honours system, scrapping most of the existing awards and creating new ones in their place. The number of decorations and medals granted was increased substantially.

New military decorations were introduced in 1975. They were followed by civil defence medals in 1976, additional [[South African police decorations} police decorations]] in 1979, new prisons service medals and railways police decorations in 1980, and decorations for the intelligence service in 1981.

During this period too, the ten African "homelands" inside South Africa were granted self-government or, in four cases, so-called "independence". Each of them had its own decorations and medals quite separate from the mainstream honours system. The homelands and their decorations and medals became obsolete when South Africa was reconstituted in 1994.

The new government retained the civil, military and police awards as an interim measure, and added new series of decorations for the former liberation armies in 1996.

[edit] 2002–

A new honours system was inaugurated in 2002, as part of the process of creating new national symbols. It was launched with civilian orders, to which a series of military decorations was added in 2003, a series of police decorations in 2004, and a series of intelligence service decorations in 2005.

A new table of precedence was issued in 2005, to consolidate all the post-1952 South African and homeland awards (more than 300 of them) into a single system^[1].