Knight Bachelor Knight Bachelor The dignity of Knight Bachelor is the basic and lowest rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight (the rank existed during the 13th century reign of King Henry III), but Knights Bachelor rank below knights of chivalric orders. There is no female counterpart to Knight Bachelor. The lowest knightly honour that can be conferred upon a woman is Dame Commander of the
New Zealand Royal Honours System on ministerial advice. However, certain awards remain in the exclusive gift of the Queen. The Honours Unit of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet administers the New Zealand honours system. Since the beginning of settlement in the mid nineteenth century, British honours were awarded in New Zealand. In 1848, Governor George Grey received the first honour granted to a New Zealand resident, becoming a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. For more than a hundred years the British honours system was used for New Zealand. In appropriate cases, this included peerages and baronetcies. Bernard Freyberg, although