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Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

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This is a list of Permanent Under-Secretaries in the British Foreign and Commonwealth 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 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
  • 1873: Lord Tenterden
  • 1882: Sir Julian Pauncefote
  • 1889: Sir Philip Currie
  • 1894: Sir Thomas Sanderson
  • 1906: Sir Charles Hardinge (later Lord Hardinge of Penshurst)
  • 1910: Sir Arthur Nicolson
  • 1916: Lord Hardinge of Penshurst
  • 1920: Sir Eyre Crowe
  • 1925: Sir William Tyrrell
  • 1928: Sir Ronald Lindsay
  • 1930: Sir Robert 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)
  • 1953: Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick
  • 1957: Sir Frederick Hoyer Millar
  • 1962: Sir Harold Caccia
  • 1965: Sir Paul Gore-Booth (also Head of the Diplomatic Service from 1968; later created Baron Gore-Booth of Maltby)
  • 1969: Sir Denis Greenhill
  • 1973: Sir Thomas 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 of Shortlands)
  • 2010: Sir Simon Fraser
  • 2015: Sir Simon McDonald

    • References

    Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA