There’s recently been an effort to update the list of Heralds Extraordinary, originally maintained by Modar Neznanich but now posted as an official College reference. Jeanne Marie Lacroix did an amazing job of checking through the entire set of records, filling in gaps and making corrections throughout.
Based on that data, I put together a little chart showing the number of new Heralds Extraordinary created each year since the rank was established.
It’s interesting to see the distribution change from around an average of less than two per year during the first two decades to nearly ten per year starting in the middle of 2002. I’m not sure what triggered the culture change, but it sure is dramatic.
Even with the increased rate in recent decades, this remains a small group, with just over 250 people so recognized in 42 years.
Caveats
This visualization is based on the data available to date, and it’s possible that a few items have been overlooked or that some entries will end up being shifted by a year or two, but this should be reasonably close to the final result.
Note also that record keeping in the early years of the College was somewhat haphazard, and in some cases we only have a date for when a title was registered rather than when the rank was awarded.