Sir Charles Kingsley Webster (25 July 1886 – August 1961) was a Cambridge-trained historian and British diplomat. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge as well as the Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby. After leaving Cambridge University, he went on to become a professor at Harvard, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. He also served as President of the British Academy from 1950-1954.
In addition to his career in academia, Webster worked extensively in the Foreign Office, especially in the United States, and was a leading supporter of the new United Nations, as he had been of the League of Nations.
After studying at Cambridge University, Webster became Professor of International Relations at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth where he wrote his two major books on the foreign policy of Lord Castlereagh, the first (published in 1925) covering the period 1815–1822, the second (published in 1931) that from 1812–1815. In 1932 Webster moved to the newly established Stevenson chair of international relations at the London School of Economics (LSE).
During World War II, he worked extensively in the Foreign Office, especially in the United States, and was a leading supporter of the new United Nations, as he had been of the League of Nations. He attended the first meetings of both the General Assembly and the Security Council in January 1946 and the final meeting of the League of Nations in April. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the new year's honours list of 1946.
In 1948, Webster gave the Ford Lectures in the University of Oxford. In 1951, his biography of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was finally published. He was President of the British Academy in 1950. He was awarded honorary degrees from Oxford, Cambridge Wales, Rome, and Williams College, Massachusetts, and was made an honorary fellow at King's College, Cambridge. He retired from his chair at the LSE in 1953.
Professor of Modern History, Liverpool University, 1914–1922
Subaltern in the Royal Army Service Corps, 1915–1917
General Staff of the War Office, 1917–1918
Secretary, Military Section, British Delegation to the Conference of Paris, 1918–1919
Wilson Professor of International Politics, University of Wales, 1922–1932
Außerordentlicher (=Associate) Professor, University of Vienna, 1926
Nobel Lecturer, Oslo, 1926
Reader, University of Calcutta, India, 1927
Professor of History, Harvard University, USA, 1928–1932
Stevenson Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1932–1953
Foreign Research and Press Service, 1939–1941
Director, British School of Information, New York, 1941–1942
Foreign Office, 1943–1946
Member of British Delegation, Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco Conferences, 1944–1945
Member, Preparatory Commission and General Assembly, United Nations, 1945–1946
Ford Lecturer, Oxford University, 1948
President, 1950–1954, and Foreign Secretary, 1955–1958, British Academy
The Congress of Vienna, OUP, 1919 (Revd. ed. 1934) online
The European alliance, 1815–1825 (University of Calcutta, 1929)
The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 (Foreign Office Historical Section, London, 1919)
British diplomacy, 1813–1815 : select documents dealing with the reconstruction of Europe (1921); 409pp online
Editor of Britain and the independence of Latin America, 1812–1830 (Ibero-American Institute of Great Britain, London, 1938)
The art and practice of diplomacy (LSE, London, 1952) online edition
British Foreign Policy since the Second World War
The Congress of Vienna, 1814–15, and the Conference of Paris, 1919 (London, 1923)
The foreign policy of Castlereagh, 1815–1822 (G Bell and Sons, London, 1925)
The Foreign Policy of Palmerston, 1830-1841: Britain, the Liberal Movement, and the Eastern Question (1951) online edition of vol 2
The founder of the national home (Weizmann Science Press of Israel, 1955)
The League of Nations in theory and practice (Allen and Unwin, London, 1933)
The pacification of Europe, 1813–1815 (1922)
Palmerston, Metternich and the European system, 1830–1841 (Humphrey Milford, London, 1934)
Sanctions: the use of force in an international organisation (London, 1956)
Some problems of international organisation (University of Leeds, 1943)
What the world owes to President Wilson (League of Nations Union, London, 1930)
The strategic air offensive against Germany, 1939–1945 (HMSO, London, 1961), coauthor 3 vol official history
Editor of British diplomatic representatives, 1789–1852 (London, 1934)
Editor of Some letters of the Duke of Wellington to his brother, William Wellesley-Pole (London, 1948).
