Also appointed Companions of Honour in the 2017 New Year Honours List were the film, theatre, television and opera director Sir Richard Eyre, the percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, the geneticist Sir Alec Jeffreys (pioneer of DNA fingerprinting and profiling), the philosopher Baroness Warnock, and the former Labour and SDP politician Baroness (Shirley) Williams.
The Order of the Companions of Honour was founded by King George V in June 1917 (at the same time as the Order of the British Empire) and is sometimes regarded as the junior order to the Order of Merit. It consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members (people from outside the qualifying realms may be added as honorary members).
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2017