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As a Nigerian, I grew up believing Herbert Macaulay's birth year to be 1864, and the article correctly states this. However, the article mentions Thomas Babington Macaulay as Herbert's father, yet he died (according to the article on Thomas Macaulay) in 1859, a full five years before Herbert's birth.
Unfortunately, I do not know too much about Thomas Macaulay, so I'm not sure which date is correct.
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The article does not currently mention that Macaulay was knighted, see
[1] and other
WP:RS. So he should be given the honorific "Sir", with the details stated in the text somewhere.
Michael D. Turnbull (
talk) 11:31, 6 October 2020 (UTC)reply
I do not think that brief article is reliable, I cannot find any other source to support him being a knight. Indeed, the Life History of Herbert Macaulay, C. E. by Isaac B Thomas calls him Mr throughout. I think it rather possible that someone has mistaken his postnominals for those of an order of knighthood.
DuncanHill (
talk) 14:21, 6 October 2020 (UTC)reply
I have not come across any authoritative texts that indicate he was knighted.
Kunkuru (
talk) 14:59, 6 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Odd. There are other several sources that call him "Sir", such as
[2] and at the end of this article
[3]. I guess these might be authors giving him a notional "Sir" as a mark of respect. I'm not an expert on historical biographies, so I'll leave it to others to decide what can be said reliably.
Michael D. Turnbull (
talk) 15:57, 6 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Neither of those actually say anything on the lines of "he was knighted" or "receiving the honour of a knighthood" or anything like that. A knighthood for a figure like Macaulay would have been a very big thing at the time, and I find it unlikely that it would not have been widely noted.
DuncanHill (
talk) 17:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)reply
OK. I've now done a text search for Macauly at the London Gazette
"here".. Fortunately, the surname is uncommon and what hits there are confirm Herbert Macauly was never knighted, nor given any other of the awards for which the Gazette is the master record. That doesn't fully explain what the other sources said but that's a less interesting question.
Michael D. Turnbull (
talk) 10:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)reply
His surname was variously spelt "Macaulay" and "Macauley".
DuncanHill (
talk) 14:29, 7 October 2020 (UTC)reply
Still OK, I think. Although there are far too many "Macaulay" + "Macauley" in the simple search, if you tick the box that restricts the answers to honours and awards, there are only a few to check and none are him.
Michael D. Turnbull (
talk) 15:11, 7 October 2020 (UTC)reply