New appointments to the Order of the Garter announced

The Queen has been pleased to appoint Dame Mary Peters to be a Lady Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, and the Marquess of Salisbury to be a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

Background

The appointment of the Knights and Ladies of the Garter is in The Queen's gift, without Prime Ministerial advice. Appointments to the Order of the Garter are therefore in the same category as the Order of the Thistle, the Order of Merit and the Royal Victorian Order. Today's announcement brings the number of Companions to twenty-three (out of a maximum of twenty-four).

Dame Mary Peters, CH, DBE (born 6 July 1939) served as Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast between 2009 and 2014. In the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, Dame Mary won the Gold Medal in the pentathlon. In 1975, she established The Mary Peters Trust to support talented young sportsmen and women across Northern Ireland. 

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, KCVO, PC, DL (born 30 September 1946) is a former Leader of the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury is a Deputy Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, and was Chairman of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation, which organised the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames in 2012. Lord Salisbury is also Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire.