Britain’s involvement in the Second World War began at 11am on 3 September 1939. The declaration came after eleven days of mounting international tension and was just one part of a flurry of governmental activity. Over three million people had …
Dr Richard Smith reveals an exciting new Twitter project by the FCO Historians In 1914 Sir Francis Bertie held the plum posting in the British Diplomatic Service—the ambassadorship to Paris. Not only did it carry a yearly salary of £11,500 …
‘In an office like ours, which is engaged solely on war work, it is often a matter of extreme difficulty to decide whether a man’s duty is to remain in his present post or to join the Army’ (National Archives …
‘The most powerful government ever to fall as a result of American covert action was the administration of Richard Nixon’ Christopher Andrew, For The President’s Eyes Only
The Foreign Office past and present: tweeting in real time, 100 years on, extracts from Foreign Office telegrams and despatches from the "July Crisis" Diplomacy, and the Foreign Office, played...
The centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War has encouraged a variety of reflections. To previous generations, the role played by their prime ministers would have been amongst the first items worthy of comment. In a less …
Muirhead Bone was born on the 23rd March 1876 in the suburb of Partick in Glasgow. Born into rather an impoverished family, any talent Bone and his siblings showed was encouraged. Each birthday Bone received artist’s materials and every week …
The instruction to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ has become one of the most recognisable slogans in British history. The phrase has reinforced a popular view of life in the Second World War and has been reproduced on everything from …
Communities across the United Kingdom are marking the First World War centenary through numerous projects thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Members of the public have been...
...the years before the war, suffragettes such as Nina Boyle of the Women’s Freedom League had argued that women police were needed so that female victims of crime might receive...