Dame Elish Angiolini appointed to Order of the Thistle

The Queen has appointed Dame Elish Angiolini, Scotland's first woman law officer, to the country's highest honour, the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle.

Sir George Reid, a former MP, MSP and Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, who has also worked in disaster and conflict relief, has also been appointed, bringing the Order up to its complement of 16 Knights (KT).

Appointments to the Order of the Thistle are entirely in the personal gift of the Queen, being made without Prime Ministerial advice.

Elish Angiolini served as Lord Advocate between 2006 and 2011 as the first woman to hold the post. She was also the first woman to hold the role of Solicitor General of Scotland, between 2001 and 2006. She has led multiple Government inquiries, and in November 2021 it was announced that she would head the independent inquiry into the murder of Sarah Everard.

Since 2012, she has served as Principal of St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, and since 2017 as Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University. She holds a visiting professorship at the University of Strathclyde, an honorary professorship at the University of Aberdeen and served as Chancellor of the University of the West of Scotland for eight years. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2011. 

The appointments are effective from 10 June 2022.