Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

These are the permanent secretaries or senior civil servants at the Foreign Office. • February 1790: George Aust • October 1795: George Hammond (resigned 1806) • March 1807: George Hammond • October 1809: William Richard Hamilton • July 1817: Joseph Planta • April 1827: John Backhouse • 1842: Henry Unwin Addington • 1854: Edmund Hammond(later Lord Hammond) • 1873: Charles Abbott, 3rd Baron Tenterden • 1882: Sir Julian Pauncefote (later Lord Pauncefote) • 1889: Sir Philip Currie (later Lord Currie) • 1894: Sir Thomas Sanderson (later Lord Sanderson) • 1906: Sir Charles Hardinge (later Lord Hardinge of Penshurst) • 1910: Sir Arthur Nicolson (later Lord Carnock) • 1916: Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst • 1920: Sir Eyre Crowe (died in office) • 1925: Sir William Tyrrell (later Lord Tyrrell) • 1928: Sir Ronald Lindsay • 1930: Sir Robert Vansittart (later Lord Vansittart) • 1938: Sir Alexander Cadogan • 1946: Sir Orme Sargent (jointly with Sir William Strang, Head of the German Section 1947–1949) • 1949: Sir William Strang (jointly with the Heads of the German Section: Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick 1949–1950, Sir D. Gainer 1950–1951) (later Lord Strang) • 1953: Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick • 1957: Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar (later Lord Inchyra) • 1962: Sir Harold Caccia (later Lord Caccia) • 1965: Sir Paul Gore-Booth (also Head of the Diplomatic Service from 1968; later Lord Gore-Booth) Foreign Office became Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 1968 • 1969: Sir Denis Greenhill (later Lord Greenhill of Harrow) • 1973: Sir Thomas Brimelow (later Lord Brimelow) • 1975: Sir Michael Palliser • 1982: Sir Antony Acland • 1986: Sir Patrick Wright (later Lord Wright of Richmond) • 1991: Sir David Gillmore (later Lord Gillmore of Thamesfield) • 1994: Sir John Coles • 1997: Sir John Kerr (later Lord Kerr of Kinlochard) • 2002: Sir Michael Jay (later Lord Jay of Ewelme) • 2006: Sir Peter Ricketts (later Lord Ricketts) • 2010: Sir Simon Fraser • 2015: Sir Simon McDonald (later Lord McDonald of Salford) Foreign & Commonwealth Office became Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Office in 2020 • 2020: Sir Philip Barton • 2025: Sir Oliver Robbins == See also ==

• Cromwell, V. (1960). An Incident in the Development of the Permanent under Secretaryship at the Foreign Office. • Cromwell, V. and Steiner, Z. (1972). The Foreign Office before 1914. In: G. Sutherland, ed., Studies in the Growth of Nineteenth-Century Government. Routledge.Historical Research, 33(87), pp.99–113. • McKercher, B.J.C. (2004). The Foreign Office, 1930–39: Strategy, Permanent Interests and National Security. Contemporary British History, 18(3), pp.87–109. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1361946042000259323. • Neilson, K. and Otte, T.G. (2009). The Permanent Under-secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854-1946. Routledge. • Steiner, Z. (1970). The Foreign Office and Foreign Policy, 1898-1914. CUP Archive. • Yule-Smith, O. (2023). ‘A Supremely Good Chinovik’: William Strang, Europe, and the Role of the Official, 1919–1949. Diplomacy & Statecraft, 34(4), pp.619–650. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2023.2270327.