A Freedom of Information request by the BBC has led to the Cabinet Office releasing the names of 287 people who turned down honours in the latter half of the 20th century, amongst them numerous eminent scientists and writers from Cambridge.

The names, released reluctantly, are of people who have rejected various honours, including 89 who turned down MBEs, 89 OBEs, 61 CBEs and 27 knighthoods. In the past this information was only made public if the individual concerned announced it themselves and until now the Cabinet Office kept the information secret, refusing a previous Freedom of Information request. The Information Commissioner has since ruled that releasing the names is in the public interest. The Commissioner did allow the Cabinet Office to keep secret the details of honours that were turned down since 2000, arguing that revealing more recent rejections could undermine the integrity of the honours system.

The Cantabrigians on the list included Francis Crick, the biologist that with James Watson unravelled the structure of DNA. He turned down a CBE in 1963. The celebrated critic F. R. Leavis, who taught for almost all his life at Downing College, also snubbed a CBE three years later in 1966. Former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics Paul Dirac refused a knighthood, as did Kingsley Martin, former editor of the New Statesman. Virginia Woolf’s husband Leonard Woolf, the notable publisher and political theorist of Trinity College, said no to the offer of becoming a Companion of Honour.

Martin Rosenbaum, who obtained the release of the list on behalf of the BBC, said that “for some people such honours and the official recognition they represent can be a high point of their lives, but clearly for others they have been unwanted, whether for reasons of principle or otherwise.”

Many names are seemingly obscure, but there are plenty of more recognizable names such as Roald Dahl, Aldous Huxley, Lucian Freud and Alfred Hitchcock. The artist L. S. Lowry notably declined honours five times. Some rejections were made famous at the time; Beatle John Lennon returned his MBE in 1969 with a note to the Queen saying:

“Your Majesty, I am returning this in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon of Bag."