1922 Birthday Honours

The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of The King, and were published in The London Gazette on 2 June 1922.

Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, chairman of the Robinson South African Banking Company and generous contributor to Prime Minister David Lloyd George's Liberal Party, was listed for a barony "for national and imperial services."

Robinson quickly declined the honour within weeks after arguments erupted in the House of Lords over the circumstances of his nomination, particularly his residency in South Africa rather than in Great Britain, and that he was not recommended for the honour directly by the South African colonial government as required.

"Feeling in the House of Lords ran high," reported The Times on 30 June.

[2] The Times praised Robinson's letter to the King asking for permission to decline the honour, and pushed for further questioning into the matter: "..by his action Sir Joseph Robinson has placed himself in the right and has left the Government to explain, if they can, how and why they placed themselves in the wrong.