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The FCO: Policy, People and Places

The FCO: Policy, people and places - an outline history of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The office of the Secretary of State has developed from the royal household of the middle ages. The first official mention in the context of foreign affairs of a King's Secretary (John Maunsell) came in 1253.

John Shirwood, the first permanent English ambassador, became resident in Rome in 1479. In 1505 John Stile, appointed by Henry VII as ambassador to Spain, became the first English ambassador resident at a secular court. By the reign of Elizabeth I further resident ambassadors had been appointed to Vienna, Venice, France and Constantinople and the outline of a network of foreign embassies was thereby established.

In 1534 Thomas Cromwell became the first layman to be appointed royal secretary and he largely began the transformation of the office by becoming in effect the chief minister, with responsibility for all matters both domestic and foreign. In 1540 a second secretary was appointed to hold jointly with Cromwell the single office of Principal Secretary.

By the seventeenth century the practice of having two Principal Secretaries, each responsible for both home and foreign affairs was definitely established. From 1640 their foreign functions were divided into two approximately geographical spheres, northern and southern, which roughly corresponded to the division of Europe into Catholic and Protestant states in the Thirty Years War. The Northern Department covered the Holy Roman Empire, Holland, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia and the Southern Department France, the other Latin countries and Turkey. These two departments were united by, among other things, shared archival facilities under a Keeper of the Papers.

Administrative reforms in 1782 resulted in the Northern Department becoming the Foreign Office and the Southern Department emerging in effect as the Home Office but with responsibility also for the colonies. Charles James Fox was the first Foreign Secretary with the playwright (and M.P. for Stafford) Richard Brinsley Sheridan as his Under-Secretary. The rest of the staff of the Foreign Office at this time comprised a second Under Secretary, a Chief Clerk and seven other clerks, two Chamber Keepers and their Deputy, and the 'necessary woman'. In 1782-3 the total cost of the establishment was £14,178, of which over one third was the Secretary of State's salary. The home staff was matched by a correspondingly small network of diplomatic posts overseas, with 21 missions in 1785, only three of which (Paris, Madrid and Constantinople) were headed by Ambassadors. 1789 saw the end of a basic pay freeze for the Diplomatic Service which had been in force for just over a century. In the nineteenth century the budget stretched to the daily provision of a bread roll 'round in shape and slightly sweet' in each room - known as the 'Prison Allowance'.

The Secretary of State for War had been awarded formal responsibility for colonial matters in 1801, and it was only in 1854 that a new Principal Secretary of State was created and a separate Colonial Office emerged. Responsibility for Indian affairs passed from the East India Company and the Indian Board of Control to the new India Office in 1858. By the late 1860s the staff of the Foreign Office had grown to about sixty and there were five embassies and nineteen legations overseas.

In 1855 the Civil Service Commissioners requested the Foreign Office to introduce rules for admission to the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. Edmund Hammond, the Permanent Under Secretary, replied that certain considerations should be taken into account, such as, 'whether the family of the candidate resides in town or not; for it is not desirable that a young man under twenty years of age should be appointed to a clerkship in the Foreign Office without his family having a home in the metropolis'. Hammond went on: 'The labour required of the Foreign Office Clerks is great, the attendance long, and the hours late and uncertain ... The Foreign Office requires of the clerks great sacrifices of time, of comfort, and of amusement; and that they should take such an interest in the Office as to consider its credit and reputation as their own. Such a feeling is the mainstay of the Foreign Office; and no person, however great his talents, would be useful or acceptable to the Office without it.' He concluded 'A candidate should be able to write a good bold hand, forming each letter distinctly; to write quickly and correctly either English or French from dictation; to understand French well... and to make a correct and clear précis or abstract of any set of papers placed in his hands.' Qualifying examinations were duly introduced the following year and in 1892 examinations for these separate services became identical. But candidates for the two services were still separately assessed, and until 1919 aspiring diplomats, who were expected to serve as unpaid attachés, were required to have a private income of £400 per annum. Moreover, applicants for both services had to be nominated by the Foreign Secretary.

These procedures tried to ensure a homogeneity of the educational and to a lesser extent the social background of newcomers to the Office. By the end of the nineteenth century the vast majority of candidates came from the major public schools or cramming establishments. Even after the First World War when entrance procedures were liberalised, the Office continued to place great emphasis upon an oral interview as a way of weeding out unsuitable candidates. Contrary to popular belief, the late nineteenth century Foreign Service was no more aristocratic in its composition than the Home Civil Service.

In 1905 the Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne, approved reforms in the registering and filing of papers (the number of which had increased tenfold from 4,534 in 1821 to 47,948 by 1900). This meant that junior clerks, whose work had consisted chiefly of mundane copying and record-keeping, were given more scope to participate in the formulation of policy, thereby relieving the burden on senior clerks and making the execution of policy more efficient.

From earliest times the Foreign Office had reflected national commercial requirements (the Younger Pitt had proclaimed that 'British policy is British trade') but it was not until 1880 that the first commercial attaché (Sir Joseph Crowe) was assigned to the Paris Embassy. In 1916 his son, Sir Eyre Crowe, headed a departmental committee which recommended the establishment of a Foreign Trade Department within the Foreign Office. This proposal met resistance from the Board of Trade and the resulting Department of Overseas Trade represented an uneasy compromise. Further Foreign Office reforms in 1919 produced a separate Commercial Diplomatic Service, which contrasted with simultaneous moves to amalgamate the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service in order to make staff serving at home and abroad interchangeable.

In 1934 the formation of the Economic Relations Section within the Foreign Office reflected its growing need for a firmer grip on economic issues. The trend towards a still more unified diplomatic service was followed through to its logical conclusion in the Eden reforms of 1943. The Commercial Diplomatic Service amalgamated with the Consular and Diplomatic Services with effect from May 1943. Commercial concerns were but one consideration during the long and complicated evolution of the Eden reforms. Attention was also paid to broadening the basis of recruitment into the new Foreign Office through the introduction of pension rights for all, allowances for travel and education of children, and a new entrance examination less weighted towards those candidates with private means and the opportunity to make special preparations for the examination. The Eden reforms also gave added emphasis to the separation of the Foreign Service from the Home Civil Service.

Significant developments were also affecting the administration of colonial affairs. In 1925 the Dominions Office had been created, to handle UK relations with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland and the then Irish Free State. Following the transfer of power to the independent governments of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Dominions Office and the India Office were transformed into the Commonwealth Relations Office. This absorbed the Colonial Office in 1966, and was renamed the Commonwealth Office.

The winds of change blew with even greater force through the Foreign Office in the 1960s. In 1962 Harold Macmillan appointed the Plowden Committee on Representational Service Overseas. Its report (Cmnd. 2276) led to the merger of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Trade Commission Services into the present Diplomatic Service on 1 January 1965. Subsequently the Commonwealth Office was merged with the Foreign Office on 17 October 1968. The last Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart, then became the first Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Against the background of Britain's changing position in the world, a second report on Overseas Representation was produced by the Duncan Committee in July 1969 (Cmnd. 4107). This recommended that the FCO should maintain fewer posts abroad and adopt a role of coordination in economic affairs. The world was to be divided into an inner 'Area of Concentration' (which did not include any of the oil-producing states) and an outer area of lesser concentration.

The FCO came under review again in the 1976-7 report of the Central Policy Review Staff. Among other things it was suggested that the Diplomatic Service might lose its separate identity in a Foreign Service Group comprising members of the Foreign Service and Home Civil Servants. While the official response, published in The United Kingdom's Overseas Representation (Cmnd. 7038, August 1978), recognised the need for the closest possible cooperation between the Diplomatic Service and the Home Civil Service, emphasis was placed on the benefits accruing from the existence of the Diplomatic Service as a separate 'specialised service'.

The 1980s saw a significant rise in the demands placed upon the FCO's limited resources - commercial enquiries between 1982 and 1988/9 for example, increased by 43%, and immigration applications between 1986 and 1989 rose by 19%. Between 1968-9 and 1993-4 the number of FCO-based staff decreased from 8,140 to 6,440 whilst the number of countries covered rose from 136 to 183. In April 1994, about 2500 were in overseas posts, with roughly 3800 serving in the UK. The 1990s continued to witness increasing demands on declining FCO resources. Despite the FCO opening or re-opening 41 Posts, the UK-based staff complement fell by 11% in that decade. In April 1999, FCO staff levels decreased again to 5,635 UK-based staff, of which 2,295 were overseas jobs.

Suggestions for further reading

Sir E. Hertslet's Recollections of the Old Foreign Office (London, 1901) is a lively and entertaining book, while Sir John Tilley and Stephen Gaselee's The Foreign Office (London, 1933) is a useful account of FO reforms, full of interesting anecdotes, written by a former Chief Clerk and a notable Librarian. Sir Cosmo Parkinson's The Colonial Office from within (London, 1947) is an amusing and affectionate memoir by a long-serving CO official who ended his career as PUS, while Lord Garner's The Commonwealth Office 1925-1968 (London, 1978) is an authoritative account by another former PUS.

Algernon Cecil's 'The Foreign Office' in the Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy 1783-1919, Vol. III, is a helpful general survey, as is R.B. Pugh's 'The Colonial Office 1801-1925' in the Cambridge History of the British Empire, Vol III. Michael Roper's The Records of the Foreign Office 1782-1939 (PRO Handbook No 13, 1969), Louise Atherton's 'Never complain, never explain'. Records of the Foreign Office and the State Paper Office 1500-c.1960 (PRO Readers' Guide No 7, 1994) and R.B. Pugh's 'The Records of the Colonial and Dominions Offices' (PRO Handbook No 3, 1964) include full descriptions of administrative and departmental development.

The evolution of the foreign service is traced in detail in: M.S. Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450-1919 (London, 1993); D.B. Horn, The British Diplomatic Service 1689-1789 (Oxford, 1961); Roger Bullen (ed), The Foreign Office 1782-1982 (Frederick, Md., 1984); R. Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy 1782-1846 (Durham, N.C., 1977); R.A. Jones, The British Diplomatic Service 1815-1914 (Ontario, 1983), and The Nineteenth Century Foreign Office: an administrative history (London, 1971); and Zara Steiner, The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898-1914 (London, 1969). See also for this period D.M. Young's The Colonial Office in the early nineteenth century (London, 1961).

A much neglected aspect of the history of Britain's foreign relations is dealt with in D.C.M. Platt's The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (London, 1971). Some useful insights into the role of the individual in the making of policy are provided in K.M. Wilson (ed), British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy: From Crimean War to First World War (London, 1987), and A. Schlaim et al (eds), British Foreign Secretaries since 1945 (London, 1977). See also Yoel Cohen, Media Diplomacy: The Foreign Office in the Mass Communications Age (London, 1986) and Michael Clarke, British External Policy-Making in the 1990s (London, 1992). John Dickie's Inside the Foreign Office (London, 1992) draws on 30 years of experience working as the Diplomatic Correspondent on the Daily Mail. An examination of the role women have played in the Foreign Office can be found in (FCO History Note No. 6, 1994).

More general books of interest include Peter Hennessy's Whitehall (London, 1989), which has been described as the thinking man's Yes Minister, and the second edition of Anthony Sampson's The Essential Anatomy of Britain Today (London, 1992) - the 1965 edition is still worth a glance, see in particular chapter 17 on 'Diplomats'. See also Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy (New York/London, 1994) for a broad sweep of the diplomacy practised by some of the 19th and 20th centuries' great men accompanied by personal accounts of his negotiations with world leaders. Kissinger's 'Diplomacy' recalls the brilliance of Sir Harold Nicholson's pithy philosophy of Diplomacy (Oxford, 1965 edn.), which remains a classic. For a snapshot of the evolution of diplomacy, diplomatic practice and brief sketches of some key Foreign Office figures such as Eyre Crowe, see the essays in Diplomacy and Diplomatists in the 20th Century (FCO Historical Branch Occasional Paper No 8, 1994). For an assessment of the activities and accomplishments of diplomats see Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert (eds), The Diplomats 1919-39 (Princeton, 1953) and Gordon A. Craig & Francis L. Lowenheim (eds), The Diplomats 1919-1979 (Princeton, 1994). An examination of the origins and practice of diplomacy can be found in Keith Hamilton & Richard Langhorne, The Practice of Diplomacy: a history of its theory, practice and administration (London, 1994).

Sir E. Satow's magisterial Guide to Diplomatic Practice has run to six editions, although the two volume edition of 1917, illustrated by historical anecdotes, is the best source for early practice. The latest edition (Oxford, OUP 2009), has been revised by retired diplomat Sir Ivor Roberts. It includes detailed information on international organisations and how they work, modern multilateral diplomacy and a useful chapter entitled 'advice to diplomats'. For a more light-hearted view of diplomatic life see John Ure, Diplomatic Bag' 'An Anthology of Diplomatic Anecdotes and Incidents from the Renaissance to the Gulf War' (London, 1994). See also Ruth Dudley Edwards' True Brits. Inside the Foreign Office (London, 1994), the book to accompany a 'fly on the wall' BBC television series about the Office.

The Retrieval Section, part of the FCO's Information Management Group, based near Milton Keynes, holds large runs of FCO Confidential Print (including Confidential General 4 on FCO administration), Library Memoranda and Circulars with their relevant indexes. Bound volumes of the Librarian's General Correspondence and Memoranda run from the late eighteenth century until 1965, and contain a unique collection of complaints, recommendations, internal circulars on departmental reorganization, and press-cuttings.