CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

1985 New Year Honours

British royal recognitions

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ4582431 ↗
Source-derived summary

The New Year Honours 1985 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries. They were announced on 31 December 1984 to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 1985 in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Barbados, Mauritius, Fiji, the Bahamas, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Christopher and Nevis.

The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged by honour, with classes (Knight, Knight Grand Cross, etc.) and then divisions (Military, Civil, etc.) as appropriate.

United Kingdom and Commonwealth

Life Peer

Baroness

Dame Mary Warnock, , Senior Research Fellow, St. Hugh's College, Oxford University.

Baron

Francis Joseph Chapple, former General Secretary, Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union.

The Right Honourable Lionel Murray, , lately General Secretary, Trades Union Congress.

Nigel Vinson, , Chairman, Development Commission. President, Industrial Participation Association.

Privy Counsellor

Sir Frederic Bennett, , Member of Parliament for Torbay.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “1985 New Year Honours” as british royal recognitions. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Year, Honours and British.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1985, 1984—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Year, Honours and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “1985 New Year Honours”, the useful work is to connect “british royal recognitions” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4582431. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1985 and 1984.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1985 New Year Honours”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1985 New Year Honours primary sources, 1985 New Year Honours archive and Year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1985 New Year Honours”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1985 New Year Honours” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.