Investitures, honours and an empire: a landmark publication

Investitures ­of the Order of St Michael and St George in Malta

by Christopher Grech

Best Print Co. Ltd, Malta, 2026

Regular readers of this Sunday newspaper should have no trouble in recognising Christopher Grech, being a regular contributor. Discerning readers will also recall that a substantial number of his articles have recorded the British governors and governance of Malta throughout the 19th and early 20th century.

Following in the pioneering footsteps of my late comrade-in-arms Albert Abela, Grech has established himself as the pre-eminent Maltese historian of the most distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, a British chivalric order established in 1818 to honour Great Britain’s relationship with Malta and the Ionian Islands. Orders of chivalry are significant national institutions, and this Order ranks fourth in the UK after the Garter, the Thistle and the Bath.

The first British governor of Malta, Sir Thomas Maitland, arrived in October 1813. He was a man of strongly held opinions, and within months of his arrival, had reformed a number of systems of government.

In Corfu, where Maitland was concurrently appointed Lord High Commissioner of the United Ionian States, he also drafted a new constitutional charter, becoming responsible for setting up two new governments in the Mediterranean.

Maitland soon realised that a form of reward for service to the British crown would go a long way towards engendering loyalty. An Order was thus developed for Maltese and Ionian citizens. British subjects holding office or actively engaged in naval service in the Mediterranean were also eligible.

The book in review is not the first that Grech has published on the Order. He was the curator of a splendid bicentenary exhibition at the Malta Postal Museum in 2018, for which he published a very extensive catalogue. Two of his articles related to investitures have appeared in the annual reports of the Order for 2022 and 2023, published by the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood (UK).

In the present volume, sponsored by the Central Bank of Malta, Grech has put together the results of research at the College of Arms in London and at the Mdina Cathedral Archives, and of trawling through the Malta Government Gazette, giving us readers an incredibly detailed account of the investitures of new members of the Order that were carried out at the Palace in Valletta.

Maitland realised that a form of reward for service to the British crown would go a long way towards engendering loyalty

Grech is the author of 10 out of 11 essays in the book. He entrusted the first essay to Theresa Vella, a well-known expert on the Palace and its art collections. Vella reproduces a number of watercolours by Charles de Brocktorff, depicting the ballroom at the Palace in 1819 and the 1820s.

Previously the Sala del Gran Consiglio of the Magistral Palace of the Order of St John, it was renamed the Hall of St Michael and St George in 1818, on the establishment of the new Order. The watercolours show the changes made by Colonel George Whitmore, R.E., in the Greek Revival style popular at the time. Vella traces the initial changes made until the hall regained its former appearance with the removal of all the cladding by 1910.

Grech follows up with an essay on the photographic evidence of the appearance of the hall during the second half of the 19th century and the first of the 20th century.  The 1903 photos show a hall very similar to that depicted by Brocktorff 80 years before, while the post-1909 photos depict a Throne Room very much as we know it today.

In his next essay, Grech recounts recent findings as to the regalia of the Order held at the College of Arms; a series of watercolour sketches of the regalia are being published in this book for the first time.

Grech expounds at length on the protocol of investitures in the fourth essay. The original format of 1818 was used for subsequent investitures. Of interest is the fact that the Tapestry Chamber at the Palace was used as the robing room for the Officers of State and for the Knights of the Order.

Grech’s next chapter is about investitures into other British orders that took place in Malta before the establishment of the Order of St Michael and St George.

The remainder, and bulk, of the book is taken up by descriptions of all the investitures that took place between 1818 and 1868. The detailed accounts reproduced from the Malta Government Gazette give a flavour of the spectacular nature of the investitures. Eyewitness accounts of two investitures recorded by Mgr Wenceslaus Debono discovered at the Metropolitan Cathedral Archives, are published for the first time in this book.

In 1864, Great Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to the new Kingdom of Greece, and it became difficult to justify the Order of St Michael and St George as a purely Maltese order. Consequently, in 1868, it was transformed into a new general colonial and imperial order.

The appendices list the original statutes of 1818, as well as the royal warrant of that year.

The uniforms of the Order’s officers are well described and illustrated, and finally there is a complete list of the Maltese members of the Order: Companions, Knights Commander and Knights Grand Cross.

The book is replete with high-quality colour illustrations, supplementing the scholarly descriptions by Grech.

This is a veritable trove of information about the British period in Malta.  You will be dipping into it for many months after you buy it.

The book is not currently available at bookshops. Those interested in purchasing a copy should contact the author at xrisgrech@gmail.com.