The actor Gary Oldman and Roger Daltrey, frontman of the Who, have been knighted in the king’s birthday honours list, which also confirms there is a knighthood for David Beckham, while the Angel of the North sculptor, Sir Antony Gormley, receives the top gong of Companion of Honour.
Pat Barker, the author of The Regeneration Trilogy, Penny Mordaunt, the former defence secretary, and the ceramicist Emma Bridgewater are among those to be made dames.
Beckham, 50, who has been honoured for services to sport and charity, said he “never could have imagined I would receive such a truly humbling honour”. He added: “It will take a little while for the news to sink in but I’m immensely proud and it’s such an emotional moment for me to share with my family.”
He had been on the verge of receiving a knighthood in 2014 but HM Revenue and Customs placed a red flag on his nomination due to his involvement in an alleged tax avoidance scheme, according to previous reports. In 2021 it was reported that his finances had been cleared and he was now eligible.
Daltrey, 81, who launched the Teenage Cancer Trust’s Royal Albert Hall concerts, said he felt “very humbled” to be made a knight for services to charity and music and would be celebrating with “a bottle of plonk”. He said: “It’s a dream come true for me, but it’s especially a dream because the charity means so much.”
Oldman, 67, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, is recognised for services to drama.
Barker, 82, said the bedrock of the awards were those who devoted long hours for free to what they believed in for the benefit of others, “and knights and dames are just cherries on the top of that cake. I am happy to be a cherry.”
Gormley becomes a Companion of Honour alongside the astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, 81. There are only 65 Companions of Honour at any one time.
The West End performer Elaine Paige said she was in “complete disbelief” at becoming a dame. Rufus Norris, 60, a former director of the National Theatre, is made a knight and said it was an “extraordinary privilege”.
Those to receive CBEs include the broadcaster Martha Kearney, the actor Jane Lapotaire, and the former tennis player Virginia Wade. The former Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott is awarded a CBE for services to economics journalism.
The Olympian Alistair Brownlee receives an OBE for services to triathlon and charity. Other OBEs include the former EastEnders actor Anita Dobson for charitable fundraising, the Bafta award-winning actor Samantha Morton, the television executive Stephen Lambert and the cricketer Devon Malcolm, for services to cricket and diversity in cricket.
The top two English darts players, Luke Littler and Luke Humphries, each score an MBE. So do Claudia Winkleman and her Strictly colleague Tess Daly. Winkleman said: “I am ridiculously lucky and will celebrate with Tess by doing a pasodoble.” Daly said: “I didn’t see it coming, and it almost didn’t happen, because the letter went to the wrong address.” Luckily, she said, “it ended well”.
Georgia Harrison, 30, who has starred in The Only Way is Essex and Love Island, receives an MBE for her campaigning on violence against women and girls after becoming a victim of “revenge porn”. She said: “It means the world to have this kind of recognition, not just for me but for all the survivors who’ve been through what I have.”
Tracy-Ann Oberman, who has also been in EastEnders and played Auntie Val in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner, has been made an MBE for services to Holocaust education and combating antisemitism.
For the first time, three family members have been named in the same honours list. Jenna Speirs and her parents, Caroline and Duncan Speirs, from the Isle of Bute, each receive a British Empire Medal (BEM) for their charity Calum’s Cabin, started after Jenna’s twin brother Calum died of a brain tumour aged 12. The charity helps thousands of people each year, providing holiday homes and Glasgow flats for families of children facing cancer to spend time together during treatment.
Anti-knife crime campaigners recognised include Pooja Kanda, who said she felt “overwhelmed” after being made an OBE for pressing for changes in the law after her 16-year-old son Ronan was murdered with a ninja sword near his Wolverhampton home in 2022. Alison Madgin, 60, and her daughter Carly Barrett, 34, are made MBEs for setting up Samantha’s Legacy after their daughter and sister Samantha, 18, was stabbed to death in Wallsend in 2007. Barrett said the award was bittersweet: “We’ve had to lose Samantha to get these honours.”
The king has personally recognised the queen’s GP, Dr Nicholas Hugh, who has the title apothecary to the queen, and Ranan Dasgupta, the sergeant-surgeon to the royal medical household, making both lieutenants of the Royal Victorian Order, honours that are in the gift of the sovereign and bestowed independently of Downing Street to people who have served the royal family.
Dasgupta, a consultant urologist at King Edward VII’s hospital in London, specialises in a number of areas including treating prostate disease and kidney stones, and was working in the role of sergeant-surgeon when in January 2024 Charles underwent a procedure on an enlarged prostate, during which time his cancer – not affecting his prostate – was discovered.
The oldest person on the list is 106-year-old William Irwin, a veteran and founder of Coleraine Winemakers Club, who receives a BEM. Carmela Chillery-Watson, 11, who has LMNA congenital muscular dystrophy, becomes the youngest ever MBE, for her fundraising for Muscular Dystrophy UK.
Of the 1,215 people receiving an award, 48% are women and 11% are from minority ethnic backgrounds.
