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Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

British civil servant position

Summary

British civil servant position

Field	Value
insignia	Coat of arms of the United Kingdom (2022, lesser arms).svg
insigniacaption	Royal arms as used by His Majesty's Government
department	Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
post	Permanent Under Secretary of Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs and Head of HM Diplomatic Service
incumbent	Sir Oliver Robbins
image	File:Olly Robbins.jpg
incumbentsince	8 January 2025
appointer	Prime Minister
inaugural	George Aust
formation	1790
reports_to	Cabinet Secretary
Foreign Secretary
nominator	Cabinet Secretary

Foreign Secretary

This is a list of permanent under-secretaries in the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (and its predecessors) since 1790.

The office holder chairs the Royal Visits Committee which provides advice to the Prime Minister on whether to invite Heads of State.

Permanent under-secretaries at the Foreign Office, 1790 to present

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)
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)
2020: Sir Philip Barton
2025: Sir Oliver Robbins

References

[https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10336/CBP-10336.pdf State visits to the UK]

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

civil-service-positions-in-the-united-kingdom foreign,-commonwealth-and-development-office 1790-establishments-in-great-britain

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