LONDON — The list of those who have served as Britain’s poet laureate contains many distinguished names. So does the list of those who have refused the job. Both are now a little longer.

The 21st poet laureate of the United Kingdom — officially appointed by Queen Elizabeth II and named Friday evening in a news release from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport — is Simon Armitage, 55, a critically lauded and popular poet from West Yorkshire, in the north of England, whose work is taught in many British schools.

His appointment came two weeks after a report in The Sunday Times of London that the position would go to another acclaimed poet, Imtiaz Dharker, who would have been Britain’s second female laureate and its first to be a person of color. Ms. Dharker, who was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and spent her childhood in Glasgow, publicly took herself out of consideration on Friday.

Mr. Armitage told the BBC that he believed there had been “a lot of discussion behind the scenes” about whether it was right for the job to go again to a white man, and that he wanted to use it to amplify the voices of those from “diverse and disadvantaged” backgrounds.