Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were biennial meetings of

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

s of the United Kingdom and the

Dominion The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...

members of the

British Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

. Seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were held between 1944 and 1969. As well, the prime ministers met for a Commonwealth Economic Conference in 1952. These series of conferences were a continuation and regularisation of the earlier

Imperial Conference Imperial Conferences (Colonial Conferences before 1907) were periodic gatherings of government leaders from the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire between 1887 and 1937, before the establishment of regular Meetings of ...

s which had been held periodically from 1887 to 1937. Since 1971,

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM; or) is a biennial summit meeting of the governmental leaders from all Commonwealth nations. Despite the name, the head of state may be present in the meeting instead of the head of ...

s have been held. Of the seventeen meetings, sixteen were held in London, reflecting then-prevailing views of the Commonwealth as the continuation of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

and the centralisation of power in the British Commonwealth Office (the one meeting outside London, in

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, was an extraordinary meeting held in January 1966 to coordinate policies towards

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of So ...

). Two supplementary meetings were also held during this period: a Commonwealth Statesmen's meeting to discuss peace terms in April 1945, and a Commonwealth Economic Conference in 1952. The first British Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was held 1–16 May 1944 in order to coordinate the war effort. In attendance were: The

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...

leaders agreed to support the Moscow Declaration and reached agreement regarding their respective roles in the overall Allied war effort. Conferences consisted of the prime ministers or presidents of independent states as well as the premiers of some senior colonies. This policy changed with the 1964 Prime Ministers' Conference which was confined to independent states and thus excluded

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing colony, self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The reg ...

whose prime ministers had attended Imperial and Commonwealth conferences since the 1930s. While the growing number of Commonwealth states was given as the reason for this change, it coincided with the emergence of

white minority rule In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority segment of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that entity's decision making. Minoritarianism may be cont ...

in Rhodesia as a major issue. The 1960s saw an overhaul of the Commonwealth. The swift expansion of the Commonwealth after decolonisation saw the newly independent countries demand the creation of the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the United Kingdom, in response, successfully founding the Commonwealth Foundation. This decentralisation of power demanded a reformulation of the meetings. Instead of the meetings always being held in London, they would rotate across the membership, subject to countries' ability to host the meetings: beginning with Singapore in 1971. They were also renamed the

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM; or) is a biennial summit meeting of the governmental leaders from all Commonwealth nations. Despite the name, the head of state may be present in the meeting instead of the head of gov ...

to reflect the growing diversity of the constitutional structures in the Commonwealth.

List of meetings

See also