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List of post nominal letters (United Kingdom)

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Orders and Decorations

When listing the honours and awards enjoyed by any person it is not customary to include the Order of St John, as this is a Royal Order and not a State Order, and so confers no precedence. The statutes of the order state (statute 32(2)) The letters specified ... may be used ... but admission or promotion to any Grade of the Order ... shall not confer any rank, style, title, dignity, appellation or social precedence whatsoever.

Contents

The Grades of the Order of St John are:

University degrees and academic qualifications

These are usually given in ascending order, and may be followed by an abbreviation denoting the awarding Institute.

Note 1: Use of Cantuar for Kent is rare and risks confusion with both Lambeth degrees and the University of Canterbury, NZ. The Latin name for Kent is Cantium (hence Cantiensis) which would give Cant (also used by the University of Canterbury, NZ); the University of Kent was originally the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Note 2: Awarded to undergraduates who receive a BEng or MEng degree from a programme within the City and Guilds College-Imperial College London.

Fellowship or membership of learned societies, academies or professional institutions

These are generally placed in the order learned societies, Royal academicians, professional institutions. According to Debrett's, within learned societies: "There is no recognised order for placing these letters. In practice, where one society is indisputably of greater importance than another the letters are usually placed in that order." Similarly, for professional institutions: "[T]here is no recognised order for placing qualifications awarded by different bodies, a recipient usually places these letters on headed paper, business cards, etc, in order of importance to his particular profession." It should also be noted that there is no clear distinction between a learned society and a professional institute. With regard to Royal Academicians, Debrett's says: "Although Royal Academicians come second in this list, it is not suggested that they yield in precedence to fellows of learned societies. In practice the two lists do not coincide." All societies, institutions, etc. are therefore listed alphabetically by substantive name, rather than attempting to establish an order of precedence.

Some post-nominals (and associated professional titles) are protected as "Professions Regulated by Professional Bodies Incorporated by Royal Charter" under the European professional qualification directives. These are indicated with an asterisk (e.g. CEng*).

Other Awards

Awards other than Crown Honours are not normally listed except in the context of events related to the awarding body

Secondary Education

These would only normally be used in activities concerning or associated with the school in question, and they would not be shown together with generally recognised post-nominal letters, e.g. "OKW, BSc". Many schools use similar abbreviations.

References

List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom) Wikipedia


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