Ministers and Foreign Secretaries 1782-1900

Jun 1895-Nov 1900
Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Cecil: a great Secretary of State who successfully combined the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary

Mar 1894-Jun 1895
Earl of Kimberley, John Wodehouse: a controversial appointment, despite his administrative competence and extensive ministerial experience. Caught between the rivalries of Rosebery and Harcourt (leader in the Commons) he had an uncomfortable tenure of an office which he had once declared to be 'the object of his life'

Aug 1892-Mar 1894
Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Primrose

Jan 1887-Aug 1892
Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Cecil

Aug 1886-Jan 1887
Earl of Iddesleigh, Stafford Northcote: confessed to the British Ambassador in Berlin that he did not 'pretend to fathom the secrets or understand the abstruse diplomacy of the day', a serious disadvantage when dealing with Bismarck

Feb-July 1886
Earl of Rosebery, Archibald Primrose: said to have achieved his three principal ambitions by the age of 48: he had become Prime Minister, won the Derby and married a rich heiress

Jun 1885-Feb 1886
Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Cecil Apr 1878-Apr 1880

Apr 1880-Jun 1885
Earl Granville,  George Leveson Gower

Apr 1878-Apr 1880
Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Cecil: a great Secretary of State who successfully combined the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary

Feb 1874-Apr 1878
Lord (Edward) Stanley, later Earl of Derby

Jul 1870-Feb 1874
Earl Granville, George Leveson Gower

Dec 1868-Jul 1870
Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers

Jul 1866-Dec 1868
Lord (Edward) Stanley, later Earl of Derby: his foreign policy was defined by Lord Salisbury as that of floating 'lazily down a stream occasionally putting out a diplomatic boat-hook to avoid collisions'

Nov 1865-Jul 1866
Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers

Jun 1859-Oct 1865
Lord John Russell, later Earl Russell

Feb 1858-Jun 1859
Earl of Malmesbury, James Harris

Feb 1853-Feb 1858
Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers: a professional diplomat, he was also one of the Foreign Office's most popular Foreign Secretaries, not least perhaps because of his immediate lifting of Palmerston's ban on smoking

Dec 1852-Feb 1853
Lord John Russell,  later Earl Russell: it fell to Russell to inspect the Foreign Office skeleton in the despatch box - that of an office cat

Feb-Dec 1852
Earl of Malmesbury, James Harris: on first becoming Foreign Secretary under Lord Derby, Malmesbury found that 'all staff were kindly disposed, but I could see that they expected me to give them much trouble and to ask their advice'

Dec 1851-Feb 1852
Earl Granville, George Leveson Gower: Granville's handwriting was unclear, his French perfect, his policy patchy

Jul 1846-Dec 1851
Viscount Palmerston, Henry John Temple

Sep 1841-Jul 1846
Earl of Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon

Apr 1835-Aug 1841
Viscount Palmerston, Henry John Temple

Nov 1834-Apr 1835
Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley: Wellington's prescription for British foreign policy was 'to stand well with France and to distrust Russia'

Nov 1830-Nov 1834
Viscount Palmerston, Henry John Temple: his gun-boat diplomacy against Greece in 1850 over-reached itself in European estimation but clinched his hold upon British parliament and public, and led towards his first premiership. He believed that 'the furtherance of British interests should be the only object of a British Foreign Secretary', and that 'it was a British interest to preserve the balance of power in international affairs, and that Britain had no permanent friends or permanent enemies'

May 1828-Nov 1830
Earl of Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon: a quiet, serious Scot and a great favourite of Queen Victoria

Apr 1827-May 1828
Viscount Dudley and Ward, later Earl of Dudley, John William Ward: rehearsed to himself conversations in two voices, gruff and shrill, it was said, 'It is only Dudley talking to Ward'. In 1832 his increasing eccentricity caused him to be placed under restraint

Sep 1822- Apr 1827
George Canning

Feb 1812-Sep 1822
Viscount Castlereagh, later 2nd Marquis of Londonderry, Robert Stewart: perhaps no other British Foreign Secretary at a great international conference has matched the sway of Castlereagh, strong in will, cool in manner, at the Congress of Vienna. He inaugurated a tradition of firm but conciliatory diplomacy

Dec 1809-Jan 1812
Marquess Wellesley, Richard Wellesley: said to be the most languid of British foreign secretaries, rarely corresponded with diplomats, and seldom attended Cabinet meetings or spoke in Parliament

Oct-Dec 1809
Earl Bathurst, Henry Bathurst: 'Though Lord Bathurst did not belong to that class of public men who leave their mark behind them, he was an able and useful minister'

Mar 1807-Oct 1809
George Canning: a brilliant and militant Foreign Secretary during the outbreak of the Peninsular War. Policy differences with his Cabinet colleague Castlereagh (Secretary of State for War) led to a duel in which Canning was wounded in the leg. This is thought to be the last time that two members of the Cabinet have literally fought it out

Sep 1806-Mar 1807
Lord Howick, later 2nd Earl Grey, Charles Grey: his brief tenure, as Lord Howick, gave little suggestion of his subsequent renown as Prime Minister at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832

Feb-Sep 1806
Charles James Fox

Jan 1805-Feb 1806
Lord Mulgrave, later 1st Earl of Mulgrave, Henry Phipps: like Harrowby he was little more than a functionary whose personal loyalty to Pitt was his outstanding characteristic. In the Office he immersed himself in minutiae and composed an ode upon the battle of Trafalgar, which was set to music by Arne

May-Dec 1804
Lord Harrowby, later 1st Earl of Harrowby, Dudley Ryder: an unlucky Foreign Secretary: at the end of 1804, having fallen downstairs on his head at the Foreign Office, he became at once 'totally disqualified for so laborious a post' and was compelled by ill-health to resign

Feb 1801-May 1804
Lord Hawkesbury, later 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson: evidently not a successful Secretary of State; 'He lacked imagination and was of so nervous a temperament that Huskisson referred to him as the grand figitatis'.

Apr 1791-Feb 1801
Lord Grenville, William Wyndham Grenville: 'As Foreign Secretary for nearly ten years, Grenville's will-power, patriotic pride and indomitable persistence provided the mainspring of the first two coalitions against France'

23 Dec 1783- Apr 1791
Marquess of Carmarthen, later 5th Duke of Leeds, Francis Godolphin Osborne: he brought to the Government more of polish than weight; and 'his social graces, his heritage, and his good looks made him one of the dandies of his age'

19-22 Dec 1783
Earl Temple, later 1st Marquess of Buckingham, George Nugent Temple Grenville: holds the record for the shortest tenure as Foreign Secretary (DNB).

Apr-Dec 1783
Charles James Fox

Jul 1782-Apr 1783
Lord Grantham,  Thomas Robinson: 'a very agreeable, pleasing man'; 'possessed solid though not eminent parts, together with a knowledge of foreign affairs and of Europe'

Mar-Jul 1782
Charles James Fox: a brief but brilliant start to the line of Foreign Secretaries