June 2007
David Miliband

May 2006 - June 2007
Margaret Beckett: first woman Foreign Secretary

Jun 2001 - May 2006
Jack Straw

May 1997 - Jun 2001
Robin Cook

Jul 1995 - May 1997
Malcolm Rifkind, later Sir Malcolm

Oct 1989 - Jul 1995
Douglas Hurd, later Lord Hurd of Westwell

Jul 1989 - Oct 1989
John Major, later Sir John

Jun 1983 - Jul 1989
Sir Geoffrey Howe, later Lord Howe of Aberavon

Apr 1982 - Jun 1983
Francis Pym, later Lord Pym of Sandy

May 1979 - Apr 1982
Lord (Peter) Carrington, Baron Carrington

Feb 1977 - May 1979
Dr David Owen, later Lord Owen of the City of Plymouth

Apr 1976 - Feb 1977
Anthony Crosland

Mar 1974 - Apr 1976
James Callaghan, later Lord Callaghan of Cardiff

Jun 1970 - Mar 1974
Earl of Home,  later Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Lord Home of the Hirsel

Mar 1968 - Jun 1970
Michael Stewart,  later Lord Stewart of Fulham: became first Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 17 Oct 1968.

Aug 1966 - Mar 1968
George Brown,  later Lord George-Brown of Jevington: Abrasive, abusive and ebullient, he was considered by some of his Cabinet colleagues not to have 'precisely the right temperament for the Foreign Office'.

Jan 1965 - Aug 1966
Michael Stewart,  later Lord Stewart of Fulham: Formerly a schoolmaster, he held office as Secretary of State in three different Departments. Reserved in manner, but strong in his convictions, he spent a good deal of his two terms as Foreign Secretary ably defending the Labour Government's stand on Vietnam against criticism on the left-wing of the Party.

Oct 1964 - Jan 1965
Patrick Gordon Walker, later Lord Gordon-Walker of Leyton: A good linguist, he was one of the few British Foreign Secretaries this century who could converse in German with a German Foreign Minister.

Oct 1963 - Oct 1964
Richard Austen Butler, later Lord Butler of Saffron Walden: Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the late 1930s, 'Rab' Butler was said to be disappointed at his appointment as Foreign Secretary in 1963. He 'got high marks for his sense of duty, low marks for his lack of commitment'.

Jul 1960 - Oct 1963
Earl of Home, later Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Lord Home of the Hirsel: An able and tough negotiator with the Russians. He once suggested to the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, that he should become next Chairman of the Conservative Party on the grounds that his views had not changed for decades.

Dec 1955 - Jul 1960
Selwyn Lloyd, later Lord Selwyn-Lloyd: his contribution was overshadowed by his close involvement in the Suez operation, of which he had not been the prime protagonist.

Apr - Dec 1955
Harold Macmillan,  later Earl of Stockton: his leading contributions were not made during his brief tenure of the Foreign Office. As Prime Minister his ventures in diplomacy earned him the nickname of 'Supermac'.

Oct 1951 - Apr 1955
Anthony Eden,  later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and Earl of Avon

Mar - Oct 1951
Herbert Morrison, later Lord Morrison of Lambeth: did not quite have a diplomatic touch: he once joked 'Foreign policy would be okay except for the bloody foreigners'.

Jul 1945 - Mar 1951
Ernest Bevin: 'A turn-up in a million' (Bevin on himself).

Dec 1940 - Jul 1945
Anthony Eden,  later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and Earl of Avon

Mar 1938 - Dec 1940
Viscount Halifax, later 1st Earl of Halifax: along with Sir Samuel Hoare, he was one of two Foreign Secretaries from the 1930s to end his career as an Ambassador, to Washington. At the important Anglo-German meeting at Berchtesgaden in 1938, he mistook Hitler for a doorman.

Dec 1935 - Feb 1938
Anthony Eden,  later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and Earl of Avon: 'his great job' (Bevin on the Eden Reforms, 1943) broadened the basis of recruitment into the new Foreign Service by the creation of a self-contained service with pension rights for all, allowances for travel and education of children, and a new entrance examination requiring no special preparation, e.g. in languages. The way was opened for candidates with little or no private means to enter the Foreign Service.

Jun - Dec 1935
Sir Samuel Hoare, later Viscount Templewood: revelations about his negotiations at Paris over the fate of Abyssinia led to his resignation. When he delivered up his seals of office King George V is said to have remarked 'no more coals for Newcastle and no more Hoares for Paris'.

Nov 1931 - Jun 1935
Sir John Simon,  later Viscount Simon: a lawyer, cool in manner and excessively correct, he once committed the error of saying in public that something made him 'boil', henceforth he was persistently caricatured by the cartoonist David Low with a kettle upon his head.

Aug - Nov 1931
Marquess of Reading, Rufus Isaacs: brilliantly affable but at 71 he was too frail for the hurly-burlies of diplomacy and departed after three months in office.

Jun 1929 - Aug 1931
Arthur Henderson: known affectionately as 'Uncle Arthur', he was a teetotaller, a non-smoker and a Methodist lay preacher; an unusual combination in the Foreign Office.

Nov 1924 - Jun 1929
Sir Austen Chamberlain: 'A great gentleman in politics', his subordinates found him unusually modest. He nevertheless became the first British Foreign Secretary to win the Nobel Peace Prize, following his successful negotiation of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925.

Jan - Nov 1924
James Ramsay MacDonald: the only Prime Minister since Salisbury to be his own Foreign Secretary. As a founder member of the Union of Democratic Control, he had been a wartime critic of the Foreign Office. One of his several achievements as Foreign Secretary was to instigate the publication of 'British Documents on the Origins of the War'.

Oct 1919 - Jan 1924
Earl (George) Curzon,  later Marquess of Kedleston: noted for his aristocratic disdain and vitriolic wit, in the words of Vansittart he 'had a great presence, great ability, great application but not quite the greatness which he greatly desired'.

Dec 1916 - Oct 1919
Arthur James Balfour,  later Earl of Balfour: a former Prime Minister, he cultivated a fine taste for good food, lawn tennis and philosophy. At the Paris Peace Conference, his behaviour was likened to that of a choir boy at a funeral service.

Dec 1905 - Dec 1916
Sir Edward Grey,  later Viscount Grey of Fallodon: holds the longest continuous term of any Foreign Secretary, and it was from his room that he observed 'the lamps ... going out all over Europe'.

Nov 1900 - Dec 1905
Marquess of Lansdowne, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice: not a great Foreign Secretary but a successful one, he presided over a diplomatic revolution which included the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the negotiation of the Anglo-French Entente.