HOME





Permanent Under-secretary Of State For Foreign Affairs
This is a list of Permanent Under-Secretary of State, Permanent Under-Secretaries in the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (and its predecessors) since 1790. Not to be confused with Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Permanent Under-Secretaries at the Foreign Office, 1790 to present These are the Permanent Secretary, Permanent Secretaries or senior civil servants at the Foreign Office. *February 1790: George Aust *October 1795: George Hammond (civil servant), George Hammond (resigned 1806) *March 1807: George Hammond (civil servant), George Hammond *October 1809: William Richard Hamilton *July 1817: Joseph Planta (politician), Joseph Planta *April 1827: John Backhouse *1842: Henry Unwin Addington *1854: Edmund Hammond, 1st Baron Hammond, Edmund Hammond (later Lord Hammond) *1873: Charles Abbott, 3rd Baron Tenterden, Lord Tenterden *1882: Sir Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote, Julian Pauncefote (later Lord Pauncefote) *1889 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

His Majesty's Government
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Overview of the UK system of government : Directgov – Government, citizens and rights
Archived direct.gov.uk webpage. Retrieved on 29 August 2014.
The government is led by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minister (Keir Starmer since 5 July 2024) who appoints all the other British Government frontbench, ministers. The country has had a Labour Party (UK), Labour government since 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024. The ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote
Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote (13 September 1828 – 24 May 1902), known as Sir Julian Pauncefote between 1874 and 1899, was a British barrister, judge and diplomat. He was Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between 1882 and 1889 when he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States and would be the last to use that title, as the office was upgraded to that of Ambassador to the United States in 1893. Elevated to the peerage as Baron Pauncefote in 1899, he died in office in 1902. Origins Descended in the male line from the prominent Smith family of bankers, who established Smith's Bank in Nottingham in 1658, he was born in Munich, Bavaria, the son of Robert "Pauncefote" (born "Robert Smith") by his wife Emma Smith, a daughter of the painter John Raphael Smith (no apparent relation to the Smith bankers). His father (who in 1809 assumed the surname of "Pauncefote" in lieu of his patronymic) was the grandson of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Donald Gainer
Sir Donald Gainer (18 October 1891 – 30 July 1966) was a British diplomat who was successively Ambassador to Venezuela, Brazil and Poland. Career Donald St Clair Gainer was educated at Charterhouse and then in Germany and France. He joined the British Consular Service in 1915 and was vice-consul successively in several towns in Norway (Narvik, Vardø, Christianssand, Tromsø, Bergen), then in Havana where he was chargé d'affaires between ambassadors. After serving at Rotterdam and Munich he was sent in 1929 to set up a new consular post at Breslau (now Wrocław, western Poland). He was Consul-General in Mexico 1931–32, then at Munich 1932–38 and Vienna 1938–39. The German government (which annexed Austria in 1938) expelled Gainer in 1939 in a tit-for-tat reprisal for the expulsion of the German consul at Liverpool. Gainer was appointed Minister to Venezuela in 1939 and promoted to Ambassador in 1944. A few weeks later he was appointed ambassador to Brazil. He left Br ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ivone Kirkpatrick
Sir Ivone Augustine Kirkpatrick, (3 February 1897 – 25 May 1964) was a British diplomat who served as the British High Commissioner in Germany after World War II, and as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the highest-ranking civil servant in the Foreign Office. Early life and family Kirkpatrick was born on 3 February 1897 in Wellington, India, the elder son of Colonel Ivone Kirkpatrick (1860–1936) of the South Staffordshire Regiment, and his wife, Mary Hardinge (d. 1931), daughter of General Sir Arthur Edward Hardinge, later Commander-in-Chief, Bombay Army, and Governor of Gibraltar. His father was a descendant of a Scottish family that settled in Ireland during the eighteenth century. His mother was former Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria, and her grandfather Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, served in the cabinets of Wellington and Peel, and was later governor-general of India in 1844–1848. Her first cousin Charles Hardinge, 1st Ba ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William Strang, 1st Baron Strang
William Strang, 1st Baron Strang (2 January 1893–27 May 1978) was a British diplomat who served as a leading adviser to the British Government from the 1930s to the 1950s and as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1949 to 1953. During his Foreign Office career, he was involved in the Munich Agreement, the Moscow Conference (1939), the European Advisory Commission, the North Atlantic Treaty, and the post-war occupation of Germany. Early life and education Strang was the eldest son of James Strang, a farmer, and his wife Margaret Steven, daughter of William Steven. He was educated at Palmer's School, University College, London and at the Sorbonne. Military and diplomatic career Strang was commissioned into the Worcestershire Regiment in 1915 and served in the First World War. He ended the war as a captain. In 1919, he joined the Diplomatic Service and served at the British embassy in Belgrade from 1919 to 1922, at the Foreign Office from 1922 to 19 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Orme Sargent
Sir Harold Orme Garton Sargent (31 October 1884 – 23 October 1962) was a British diplomat and civil servant. Early life and career Sargent was born Giles Orme Sargent; his parents changed his name after they registered his birth. He was educated at Radley College, then in Switzerland, and prepared for the Diplomatic Service. He entered the Foreign Office in 1906. Diplomat Sargent was at the British legation in Bern from 1917 to 1919 when he was posted to Paris with the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. " he ambassadors'discussions ranged over all the problems of Europe, and gave Sargent a memorable introduction to many of the new influences, hopes and fears occasioned by the disintegration of pre-1914 Europe."Obituary: Sir Orme Sargent – A Leading Expert On Europe, ''The Times'', London, 24 October 1962, page 15 He remained in Paris until 1925, when he returned to London and thereafter refused to go abroad again. In 1926, with the rank of counsellor, he wa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Alexander Cadogan
Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan (25 November 1884 – 9 July 1968) was a British diplomat and civil servant. He was Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1946. His long tenure of the Permanent Secretary's office makes him one of the central figures of British policy before and during the Second World War. His diaries are a source of great value and give a sharp sense of the man and his life. Like most senior officials at the Foreign Office, he was bitterly critical of the appeasement policies of the 1930s but admitted that until British rearmament was better advanced, there were few other options. In particular, he stressed that without an American commitment to joint defence against Japan, Britain would be torn between the eastern and western spheres. He was part of the delegation that accompanied Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill at the Atlantic Conference with President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt, where parties agre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart
Robert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart, (25 June 1881 – 14 February 1957), known as Sir Robert Vansittart between 1929 and 1941, was a senior British diplomat in the period before and during the Second World War. He was Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister from 1928 to 1930 and Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938 and later served as Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the British Government. He is best remembered for his opposition to appeasement and his strong stance against Germany both during and after the Second World War. His 1941 book, '' Black Record: Germans Past and Present'', led to the coining of the term Vansittartism, a doctrine holding that Germans were incorrigibly violent and militaristic throughout their history. Vansittart was also a published poet, novelist and playwright. Background and education Vansittart was born at Wilton House, Farnham, Surrey, the eldest of the three sons of Robert Arnold Vansittart, of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ronald Lindsay
Sir Ronald Charles Lindsay (3 May 1877 – 21 August 1945) was a British diplomat. He was Ambassador to Turkey from 1925 to 1926 and to Germany from 1926 to 1928, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1928 to 1930 and Ambassador to the United States from 1930 to 1939. Background and education Lindsay was the fifth son of James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, by Emily Florence Bootle-Wilbraham. David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford, was his elder brother and his maternal grandfather was Colonel the Honourable Edward Bootle-Wilbraham (second son of Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale). He was educated at Winchester College in Winchester, Hampshire. Career Lindsay was appointed Third Secretary in the Diplomatic Service in January 1901, and advanced to First Secretary in 1911. From 1913 to 1919 he was Under-Secretary of Finance for Egypt, and was made a Grand Officer of the Order of the Nile by the Sultan of Egypt in 1915. From 1919 to 1920 he was C ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


William George Tyrrell, 1st Baron Tyrrell
William George Tyrrell, 1st Baron Tyrrell, (17 August 1866 – 14 March 1947) was a British civil servant and diplomat. He was Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between 1925 and 1928 and List of Ambassadors from the United Kingdom to France, British Ambassador to France from 1928 to 1934. Background and education Tyrrell was the son of Sir Judge William Henry Tyrrell and his wife Julia Wakefield (daughter of Col. John Howard Wakefield and his Christian-convert wife, Maria Isobel, daughter of the Hereditary Vizier of Bushahr). He was the nephew-in-law of Hugo von Radolin, Hugo ''Fürst'' Radoliński-Leszczyc von Radolin. Tyrrell was educated in Germany (he spoke fluent German) and at Balliol College, Oxford. Career Tyrrell served in the Foreign Office from 1889 to 1928. He was private secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Thomas Sanderson, 1st Baron Sanderson, Thomas Sanderson from 1896 to 1903 and then secretary to the Com ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Eyre Crowe
Sir Eyre Alexander Barby Wichart Crowe (30 July 1864 – 28 April 1925) was a British diplomat, an expert on Germany in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He is best known for his vehement warning, in 1907, that Germany's expansionism was motivated by animosity towards Britain and should provoke a closer Entente Cordiale between the British Empire and France. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Crowe worked with the French President Georges Clemenceau. Although Lloyd George and Crowe's rivals in the Foreign Office tried to prevent his promotion and lessen his influence, Crowe served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 until his death in 1925, as a consequence of his patronage by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon. Early life Half-German, Crowe was born in Leipzig in 1864. He was educated at Düsseldorf, at Berlin, and in France. His father, Joseph Archer Crowe (1825–1896), was a British Consul-General and Chief European Commercial Attaché betw ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock
Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock, (19 September 1849 – 5 November 1928), known as Sir Arthur Nicolson, 11th Baronet, from 1899 to 1916, was a British diplomat and politician during the last quarter of the 19th century to the middle of World War I. Early life Born in London, he was the eldest son of Admiral Sir Frederick Nicolson, 10th Baronet by his wife Mary Loch. Educated at Rugby and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he left without taking a degree, he succeeded his father as Baronet in 1899.CARNOCK, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 Career From 1870 to 1874, he worked in the Foreign Office, during which time he was author of the ''History of the German Constitution'' (1873). From 1872 to 1874, he was secretary to Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville, followed by secretary of the Embassy at Berlin (from 1874 to 1876) and secretary of the Embassy at Peking (1876–1878). From 1879 to 1881, he was Secretary to t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]