Skip to main content

What’s the context? 1 December 1925: signing the Locarno Treaties

Posted by: and , Posted on: - Categories: Foreign affairs and diplomacy, What's the context? series

1 December 2015 marks the 90th anniversary of the formal signing of the Locarno Treaties at the Foreign Office in London. Named after the town in Switzerland where the treaties had been negotiated a few months earlier, their aim was …

The Hertslets, a Family of Librarians

Map of Africa, 1894, Catalogue Ref: MFQ 1/166

There are various departments within the civil service which were, you could say, family affairs. The Foreign Office was undoubtedly the department in which this practice was the most spread. Appointments to the diplomatic service were often based upon recommendations and who …

What’s the Context? 4 April 1949: the signature of the North Atlantic Treaty

The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty

How the West was won 65 years ago today the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in the State Department auditorium in Washington. An organisation was born—NATO—that remains a cornerstone of Western defence up to the present day. In 1949 there …

What’s the context? 22 January 1924: Britain’s first Labour government takes office

Ramsay MacDonald

Ninety years ago today, the British political mould was shattered by the election of the first Labour government. After an inconclusive election on 6 December 1923 that the ruling Conservatives lost but nobody won, Ramsay MacDonald took office as both …

The Locarno Suite: ‘Drawing room for the Nation’

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Art and design, Foreign affairs and diplomacy, Foreign Office Historians
Conference Room

Early foreign diplomatic entertainment by the Foreign Secretary took place in local taverns or at his home, but by the 1850s the London Diplomatic Corps had increased so greatly that there were very few places sufficiently large enough to contain …