From Henry C. Manners-Sutton   20 February 1869

20 February 1869

Sir,

I am directed by the Governor to inform you that His Excellency has received from the Secretary of State a notification that he (the Duke of Buckingham & Chandos) has had great pleasure in submitting to the Queen your name for the dignity of a Companion of the Order of St Michael & St George in recognition of your distinguished services as Government Botanist

Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to approve of that recommendation —

I am further to inform you that the Secretary of State has expressed his satisfaction in thus marking his recognition of your services by including your name in the first list of appointments which has been submitted to the Queen on the extension of the Order.1

I am further to state that you will receive the insignia of the Order through the Secretary and Registrar, as soon as the necessary arrangements shall have been made for giving full effect to this appointment.

I have &c

(sd) H. C. Manners Sutton.

 

Dr Von Mueller C.M.G. M.D. F.R.S.

&c &c &c

1
Eligibility for appointment to the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, previously open to those with service in the Mediterranean, was extended by a statute of the Order made on 4 December 1868 to ‘such Natural-born Subjects of the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as may have held or should thereafter hold High and Confidential Offices within any of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, or such other Natural-born Subjects of the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as may have held or should thereafter hold High and Confidential Offices, or may render Extraordinary and Important Services to Her Majesty, as Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in relation to any of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, or who may become eminently distinguished therein by their Talents, Merits, Virtues, Loyalty, or Services’. An amendment of 3 April 1869 ordained ‘that Persons, of whatever Nation or Country, who may have been duly naturalized in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or in any of Her Majesty's Colonies or Dependencies, shall be competent to be admitted into the said Order, in like manner as if they had been Natural born Subjects of the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ (Supplement to London Gazette, 1 July 1869, pp 1749–50). It was under this amendment that M was formally appointed to the order, the previous approval notified in the Despatch, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos to H. Manners-Sutton, 8 December 1868 (The National Archives, London, CO 447/9), paraphrased here by Manners-Sutton, having been ultra vires.

Please cite as “FVM-69-02-20,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on 25 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/vonmueller/letters/69-02-20