Talk:Paul Reeves

Knight Bachelor
This article states that Paul Reeves was appointed both Knight Bachelor and GCMG in 1985. Is this right? I am looking at Crockford's Clerical Directory 2002/2003, p. 624, which mentions his GCMG, GCVO, and QSO. It seems unlikely that he would have informed the compilers of the directory of three of his honours from the Crown and failed to mention that he was also a Knight Bachelor.

Further, what would the point have been in making him simultaneously a Knight Bachelor (the lowest degree of knighthood) and a GCMG (one of the highest degrees of knighthood)? The Knight Bachelor confers no extra title, postnominal letters, or precedence, that is not immediately superseded by his becoming a GCMG. (The GCVO is junior to the GCMG but is conferred as an honour in the Sovereign's personal gift rather than on the advice of the Prime Minister and it reflects services to the Sovereign personally).

I wonder whether the authors of this article, and of the articles on the Internet on which I assume it is based, have misunderstood the nature of the Knight Bachelor and the GCMG and think that Knight Bachelor is what all knights are, not realising that it is possible to be a knight without being a Knight Bachelor.

The explanation that was given to me about his using the title Sir was that he was invested with the GCMG by his predecessor David Beattie as one of Beattie's final duties in office and that Beattie didn't realise that as a clergyman Reeves was not supposed to be given the accolade. Once the accolade had been conferred the only way for the error to be correct would have been to degrade him from his knighthood and immediately re-appoint him but without the accolade, which was thought to be too complicated.--Oxonian2006 18:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * He was appointed Knight Bachelor in the New Zealand Birthday Honours 1985. MrsBucket (talk) 15:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Crockford provides:


 * "An ordained priest may be appointed to an order of knighthood, but will not normally receive the accolade or title. The appropriate designation will follow the name or ecclesiastical title, e.g. The Right Reverend the Bishop of X, KCVO. If he was knighted before he was ordained, he will retain his title."


 * The issue with clergy is normally being dubbed with a sword and using the title 'Sir', both of which are considered inappropriate for men in holy orders. In this respect I can't imagine a knighthood bachelor being any different. So was the reason that they didn't want to address him as 'Bishop Reeves', as they would otherwise have had to, but the Queen was unwilling to connive in this breach of tradition, so the NZ Government had to be responsible for making him 'Sir'? In Australia, the solution was for the Abp of Canterbury to grant Bishop Hollingworth a Lambeth doctorate, so that he could be 'Dr Hollingworth'. Andrew Yong (talk) 09:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The Rt Revd the Hon
The page Style_(manner_of_address) reads, "The Reverend the Honourable (not "and Honourable") (abbreviation The Rev. the Hon., oral address according to ecclesiastical or other status) — ordained son of an earl, viscount, or baron, or ordained daughter of a viscount or baron (unless also a privy councillor or peer)".

Speaking as a former assistant compiler of Crockford's Clerical Directory I should say that "The (...) Revd the Hon" is correct - not "The (...) Revd and Hon". There was a dean/provost in the Church of England who was the son of a peer and was styled, "The Very Reverend the Hon".

I should think that the rationale may be this: in the more familiar styles The Most Revd and Rt Hon and The Rt Revd and Rt Hon it is clear that Most (in the case of an archbishop) or Right (in the case of a bishop) qualifies Reverend and that Right (in both cases, when the prelate is a privy counsellor) qualifies Honourable. However, when the person is merely "Honourable", if the style were combined with "Most/Right/Very Reverend" using "and" it would be possible to interpret, e.g., "The Rt Revd and Hon" as meaning "The Rt Revd and Rt Hon", i.e. to interpret "Right" as qualifying both "Reverend" and "Honourable". Using "the" instead of "and" avoids that confusion. I must admit that this rationale does not explain the case of "The Revd the Hon" when the person is merely "Reverend" since "The Revd and Hon" would seem to serve the same purpose with no ambiguities.

However, rationale correct or otherwise, I think that "the" is correct before "Hon" - not "and". Google comes up with about 10,100 results for "reverend the honourable" but only about 116 results for "reverend and honourable". Examples of the former include, "[The] Reverend the Honourable Charles Courtenay (1816-1894) (son of 10th Earl of Devon)", "[The] Reverend the Honourable Andrew Elphinstone", "The Reverend the Honourable Winfield Stratford Twistleton Wykeham Fiennes Vicar at Milton Keynes 1880-1910", "The Reverend the Honourable George Thomas Orlando Bridgeman (1823-1895)", and even, "The Right Reverend, the Honourable Sir Paul Reeves" (the comma is unnecessary, if not in fact wrong). (See Police Taser Trial in Government's Ghettos (Maori Party press release, 31 August 2006)). As a former Governor-General, Sir Paul is entitled to the style "Hon". On the analogy of the usage of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prelates who are privy counsellors, I would suggest that the correct style is "Rt Rev'd and Hon" (one is an ecclesiastical style, the other state, and shouldn't be combined). Ncox (talk) 04:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Most Rev. vs Rt Rev. / Government House vs Beehive information
Government House uses Most Rev. while the Beehive uses Rt Rev., so which is the right one? I mean Rt Rev. goes with being a bishop, but is the Most Rev. really for life? Certainly he was entitled to the Most Rev. during his time as archbishop, and according to the Govt House disclaimer that "All Honours listed are those held on retirement from office" it appears that Govt House used Most Rev. at least at the time when he retired as GG (which is after his time as Archbishop of NZ). Obviously it'd be safe to stick with the recent source (Beehive) but its not a good look that two government websites have conflicting information… Mr Bluefin 10:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The Most Reverend is proper to archbishops, primates, metropolitans, etc during their terms of office. Traditionally there has been no such appointment as archbishop (etc) emeritus and those retired from the office have reverted to the style of a bishop. The same used to be true of archdeacons, who, unless otherwise qualified for a more elevated style, reverted to the style of a priest on retirement. To the best of my knowledge The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu is the only archbishop emeritus in the Anglican Communion.--Oxonian2006 18:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Paul Reeves has the status of a bishop, having received the Holy Order of bishop. While he held office as archbishop he was entitled to "Most Rev'd", but that is lost on retirement. The equivalent is a priest who is an archdeacon. While in office he is "the Venerable"; on retirement he returns to "the Rev'd".Ncox (talk) 04:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Which makes him the Reverend. Why is he "His Excellency"? MrsBucket (talk) 11:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Maori heritage
Shouldn't this ethnicity be mentioned in the introductory section? Is this not in what in large measure contributes to his being such a major NZ historical figure? 75.201.183.2 (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Unless you're a raving bigot, there is more to a man than his ethnicity.  Deterence  Talk 06:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, perhaps I am proving myself to be a raving bigot, but I think being the first Maori Governor-General is important enough to mention in the lead section (which seems too brief at present). It would also be worth mentioning there that he's the only priest to have served as Governor-General, in NZ at least, assuming this can be sourced. --Avenue (talk) 09:06, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * When I die, feel free to ignore my race when writing my obituary.  Deterence  Talk 10:18, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Biography of Living Person
Sir Paul Reeves died today (14th August 2011). This page currently has a WP:BLP banner. Is there some sort of grace period after a person's death where adherence to Wikipedia's stricter rules regarding living persons continue to apply?  Deterence  Talk 06:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:BDP makes no mention of a grace period. I think in practice it will make very little difference, and having it present for a dead person is confusing and incorrect. I have removed it. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:54, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I endorse your removal of the BLP banner.  Deterence  Talk 08:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Date of Death
The Main Page was originally edited (by User:Gadfium) to say that Sir Paul Reeves died on the 13th of August 2011. But, the media sources that I have seen (such as Stuff and the Dom) suggest he died on the morning of the 14th of August. Does anyone have any confirmation either way?  Deterence  Talk 10:15, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Heard says |He died overnight and they issued a statement Sunday morning - SimonLyall (talk) 10:21, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't even bother to raise this issue, but all the media sources I have seen are pretty specific in saying that he died on the morning of the 14th of August. But, User:Gadfium's edit is time-stamped on the 13th of August, which would suggest some rather prophetic insight on his part if both that time-stamp and the media are correct.  Deterence  Talk 10:49, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The timestamps are in UTC, not NZ time, so no special insight is indicated. Your sources are clear that he died on the 14th, so in the absence of any conflicting sources, we should say the same. --Avenue (talk) 12:04, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have struck problems with the use of UTC time in the past when I have been the first in the world (!!!) to create deletion discussions. I would like to see the server time set to UTC−12:00 to avoid time stamp problems. Not sure what the wider implications would be. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Photo of Reeves knighting Ron Brierley - remove or keep?
Now that Ron Brierley has admitted to child pornography crime and given up his knighthood (before it was stripped from him), should we remove the photo from this article? My instinct is to remove it. I feel it tarnishes the Reeves article in a way. But, there's not much in the way of a replacement in Commons. And, it's an event that's in the historical record. What do others think? Nurg (talk) 11:13, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded the remaining images of Reeves from gg.govt.nz to Commons. Perhaps the image of him inspecting the naval guard of honour, or the image of him with the pou he commissioned for Government House, Wellington, would be suitable?


 * Paora (talk) 02:26, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot Paora. I've picked the other one you uploaded - but didn't mention - the one with his wife. Nurg (talk) 09:04, 25 May 2021 (UTC)