A list of the 57 Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, from Charles James Fox (1782) to Robin Cook (1997-2001), with dates and biographical sketches (for 1782-1960 only) is available from Historians, RHD. The following abbreviated extracts have been taken in part from the list originally compiled for the FO Bicentenary in 1982.

Mar-Jul 1782
Fox, Charles James: a brief but brilliant start to the line of Foreign Secretaries (Christopher Hobhouse, Fox - London: 1964; L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox - Oxford: 1992).

Jul 1782-Apr 1783
Grantham, 2nd Lord, Thomas Robinson: 'a very agreeable, pleasing man', (H. Walpole); 'possessed solid though not eminent parts, together with a knowledge of foreign affairs and of Europe' (Dictionary of National Biography).

Apr-Dec 1783
Fox, Charles James

19-22 Dec 1783
Temple, 3rd Earl, George Nugent Temple Grenville, later 1st Marquess of Buckingham: holds the record for the shortest tenure as Foreign Secretary (DNB).

23 Dec 1783- Apr 1791
Carmarthen, Marquess of, later 5th Duke of Leeds, Francis Godolphin Osborne: he brought to the Government more of polish than weight (Stanhope); 'his social graces, his heritage, and his good looks made him one of the dandies of his age' (C.R. Middleton, The Administration of British Foreign Policy, 1782-1846 - Durham N.C.: 1977).

Apr 1791-Feb 1801
Grenville, Lord, William Wyndham Grenville: 'As Foreign Secretary for nearly ten years, Grenville's will-power, patriotic pride and indomitable persistence provided the mainspring of the first two coalitions against France' (Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, vol. i - Cambridge: 1923).

Feb 1801-May 1804
Hawkesbury, Lord, later 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson: evidently not a successful Secretary of State; 'He lacked imagination and was of so nervous a temperament that Huskisson (see p. 27) referred to him as the grand figitatis' (Middleton).

May-Dec 1804
Harrowby, 2nd Lord, later 1st Earl of Harrowby, Dudley Ryder: an unlucky Foreign Secretary: at the end of 1804, having fallen downstairs on his head at the Foreign Office, he became at once 'totally disqualified for so laborious a post' and was compelled by ill-health to resign (DNB).

Jan 1805-Feb 1806
Mulgrave, 3rd Lord, later 1st Earl of Mulgrave, Henry Phipps: like Harrowby he was little more than a functionary whose personal loyalty to Pitt was his outstanding characteristic. In the Office he immersed himself in minutiae and composed an ode upon the battle of Trafalgar, which was set to music by Arne (Middleton).

Feb-Sep 1806
Fox, Charles James

Sep 1806-Mar 1807
Howick, Lord, later 2nd Earl Grey, Charles Grey: his brief tenure, as Lord Howick, gave little suggestion of his subsequent renown as Prime Minister at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832 (DNB; E. A. Smith, Life of Lord Grey 1764-1845 - Oxford 1990; John W. Derry, Charles, Earl Grey: Aristocratic Reformer - Oxford 1992).

Mar 1807-Oct 1809
Canning, George: a brilliant and militant Foreign Secretary during the outbreak of the Peninsular War. Policy differences with his Cabinet colleague Castlereagh (Secretary of State for War) led to a duel in which Canning was wounded in the leg. This is thought to be the last time that two members of the Cabinet have literally fought it out (Harold Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning 1822-1827 - London: 1925).

Oct-Dec 1809
Bathurst, 3rd Earl, Henry Bathurst: 'Though Lord Bathurst did not belong to that class of public men who leave their mark behind them, he was an able and useful minister' (DNB).

Dec 1809-Jan 1812
Wellesley, 1st Marquess, Richard Wellesley: said to be the most languid of British foreign secretaries, rarely corresponded with diplomats, and seldom attended Cabinet meetings or spoke in Parliament (Middleton).

Feb 1812-Sep 1822
Viscount Castlereagh, later 2nd Marquis of Londonderry, Robert Stewart: perhaps no other British Foreign Secretary at a great international conference has matched the sway of Castlereagh, strong in will, cool in manner, at the Congress of Vienna. He inaugurated a tradition of firm but conciliatory diplomacy (Sir C. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1815-1822 - London: 1931; C. J. Bartlett, Lord Castlereagh: The Rediscovery of a Statesman - London: 1971).

Sep 1822- Apr 1827
Canning, George

Apr 1827-May 1828
Dudley and Ward, 4th Viscount, later Earl of Dudley, John William Ward: rehearsed to himself conversations in two voices, gruff and shrill, it was said, 'It is only Dudley talking to Ward'. In 1832 his increasing eccentricity caused him to be placed under restraint (DNB).

May 1828-Nov 1830
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, George Hamilton Gordon: a quiet, serious Scot and a great favourite of Queen Victoria (Muriel Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen, A Political Biography - London: 1983).

Nov 1830-Nov 1834
Palmerston, 3rd Viscount, Henry John Temple: his gun-boat diplomacy against Greece in 1850 over-reached itself in European estimation but clinched his hold upon British parliament and public, and led towards his first premiership. He believed that 'the furtherance of British interests should be the only object of a British Foreign Secretary', and that 'it was a British interest to preserve the balance of power in international affairs, and that Britain had no permanent friends or permanent enemies' (K. Bourne, Palmerston: the early years, 1784-1841 - London: 1982; M. Partridge and K. Partridge, Lord Palmerston, 1784-1865. A Bibliography - London: 1994).

Nov 1834-Apr 1835
Wellington, 1st Duke of, Arthur Wellesley: Wellington's prescription for British foreign policy was 'to stand well with France and to distrust Russia' (Lady Longford, Wellington, 2 vols - London: 1971, 1972).

Apr 1835-Aug 1841
Palmerston, 3rd Viscount, Henry John Temple

Sep 1841-Jul 1846
Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, George Hamilton Gordon

Jul 1846-Dec 1851
Palmerston, 3rd Viscount, Henry John Temple

Dec 1851-Feb 1852
Granville, 2nd Earl, George Leveson Gower: Granville's handwriting was unclear, his French perfect, his policy patchy (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of Lord Granville - London: 1905).

Feb-Dec 1852
Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, James Harris: on first becoming Foreign Secretary under Lord Derby, Malmesbury found that 'all staff were kindly disposed, but I could see that they expected me to give them much trouble and to ask their advice' (Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an ex-Minister - London: 1885).

Dec 1852-Feb 1853
Russell, Lord John, later 1st Earl: it fell to Russell to inspect the Foreign Office skeleton in the despatch box - that of an office cat (G.P. Gooch, Ed., The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell 1840-1878, 2 vols - London: 1925).

Feb 1853-Feb 1858
Clarendon, 4th Earl of, George Villiers: a professional diplomat, he was also one of the Foreign Office's most popular Foreign Secretaries, not least perhaps because of his immediate lifting of Palmerston's ban on smoking (H. Maxwell, Life of Clarendon - London: 1913).

Feb 1858-Jun 1859
Malmesbury, 3rd Earl of, James Harris

Jun 1859-Oct 1865
Russell, Lord John, later 1st Earl

Nov 1865-Jul 1866
Clarendon, 4th Earl of, George Villiers

Jul 1866-Dec 1868
Stanley, Lord, Edward Henry, later 15th Earl of Derby: his foreign policy was defined by Lord Salisbury as that of floating 'lazily down a stream occasionally putting out a diplomatic boat-hook to avoid collisions' (J.A.S. Grenville, Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy - London: 1964; K. Bourne, The Foreign Policy of Victorian England 1830-1902 - Oxford, 1970; DNB).

Dec 1868-Jul 1870
Clarendon, 4th Earl of, George Villiers

Jul 1870-Feb 1874
Granville, 2nd Earl, George Leveson Gower

Feb 1874-Apr 1878
Stanley, Lord, Edward Henry, later 15th Earl of Derby

Apr 1878-Apr 1880
Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, Robert Cecil: a great Secretary of State who successfully combined the offices of Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary (Lillian Penson, Foreign Affairs under the Third Marquis of Salisbury - London, 1962; J.A.S. Grenville).

Apr 1880-Jun 1885
Granville, 2nd Earl, George Leveson Gower

Jun 1885-Feb 1886
Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, Robert Cecil

Feb-July 1886
Rosebery, 5th Earl of, Archibald Primrose: said to have achieved his three principal ambitions by the age of 48: he had become Prime Minister, won the Derby and married a rich heiress (G. Martel, Imperial Diplomacy: Rosebery and the Failure of Foreign Policy - London: 1986).

Aug 1886-Jan 1887
Iddesleigh, 1st Earl of, Stafford Northcote: confessed to the British Ambassador in Berlin that he did not 'pretend to fathom the secrets or understand the abstruse diplomacy of the day', a serious disadvantage when dealing with Bismarck (C.J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists. Volume I: British foreign policy 1878-1902 - London: 1967).

Jan 1887-Aug 1892
Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, Robert Cecil

Aug 1892-Mar 1894
Rosebery, 5th Earl of, Archibald Primrose

Mar 1894-Jun 1895
Kimberley, 1st Earl of, John Wodehouse: a controversial appointment, despite his administrative competence and extensive ministerial experience. Caught between the rivalries of Rosebery and Harcourt (leader in the Commons) he had an uncomfortable tenure of an office which he had once declared to be 'the object of his life' (K.M. Wilson, Ed., British Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy - London: 1987; G. Martel, op.cit.).

Jun 1895-Nov 1900
Salisbury, 3rd Marquess of, Robert Cecil

Nov 1900-Dec 1905
Lansdowne, 5th Marquess of, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice: not a great Foreign Secretary but a successful one, he presided over a diplomatic revolution which included the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and the negotiation of the Anglo-French Entente (G.W. Monger, The End of Isolation: British Foreign Policy 1900-1907 - London: 1963).

Dec 1905-Dec 1916
Grey, Sir Edward, later Viscount Grey of Fallodon: holds the longest continuous term of any Foreign Secretary, and it was from his room that he observed 'the lamps ... going out all over Europe' (K. Robbins, Sir Edward Grey. A Biography of Lord Grey of Fallodon - London: 1971; F. H. Hinsley, Ed., British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey - Cambridge: 1977).

Dec 1916-Oct 1919
Balfour, Arthur James, later 1st Earl of Balfour: a former Prime Minister, he cultivated a fine taste for good food, lawn tennis and philosophy. At the Paris Peace Conference, his behaviour was likened to that of a choir boy at a funeral service (R.F. MacKay, Balfour: Intellectual Statesman - Oxford: 1985).

Oct 1919-Jan 1924
Curzon, Earl, later 1st Marquess of Kedleston: noted for his aristocratic disdain and vitriolic wit, in the words of Vansittart he 'had a great presence, great ability, great application but not quite the greatness which he greatly desired' (K. Rose, Superior Person: A Portrait of Curzon - London: 1969).

Jan-Nov 1924
MacDonald, James Ramsay: the only Prime Minister since Salisbury to be his own Foreign Secretary. As a founder member of the Union of Democratic Control, he had been a wartime critic of the Foreign Office. One of his several achievements as Foreign Secretary was to instigate the publication of 'British Documents on the Origins of the War' (David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald - London: 1977).

Nov 1924-Jun 1929
Chamberlain, Sir Austen: 'A great gentleman in politics', his subordinates found him unusually modest. He nevertheless became the first British Foreign Secretary to win the Nobel Peace Prize, following his successful negotiation of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 (D. Dutton, Austen Chamberlain. Gentleman in Politics - Bolton: 1985).

Jun 1929-Aug 1931
Henderson, Arthur: known affectionately as 'Uncle Arthur', he was a teetotaller, a non-smoker and a Methodist lay preacher; an unusual combination in the Foreign Office (D. Carlton, Macdonald versus Henderson - London: 1970).

16 Aug-Nov 1931
Reading, 1st Marquess of, Rufus Isaacs: brilliantly affable but at 71 he was too frail for the hurly-burlies of diplomacy and departed after three months in office (D. Judd, Lord Reading - London: 1982).

Nov 1931-Jun 1935
Simon, Sir John, later 1st Viscount: a lawyer, cool in manner and excessively correct, he once committed the error of saying in public that something made him 'boil', henceforth he was persistently caricatured by the cartoonist David Low with a kettle upon his head (Sir R. Vansittart, The Mist Procession - London: 1958).

Jun-Dec 1935
Hoare, Sir Samuel, later 1st Viscount Templewood: revelations about his negotiations at Paris over the fate of Abyssinia led to his resignation. When he delivered up his seals of office King George V is said to have remarked 'no more coals for Newcastle and no more Hoares for Paris' (J. A. Cross, Sir Samuel Hoare. A Political Biography - London: 1977).

Dec 1935-Feb 1938
Eden, Anthony, later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and 1st Earl of Avon: 'his great job' (Bevin on the Eden Reforms, 1943) broadened the basis of recruitment into the new Foreign Service by the creation of a self-contained service with pension rights for all, allowances for travel and education of children, and a new entrance examination requiring no special preparation, e.g. in languages. The way was opened for candidates with little or no private means to enter the Foreign Service (Lord Avon, The Eden Memoirs, 1938-1956 3 vols - London: 1960, 1962, 1965; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden - London: 1986; Victor Rothwell, Anthony Eden. A Political Biography 1931-57 - Manchester 1992).

Mar 1938-Dec 1940
Halifax, 3rd Viscount, later 1st Earl: along with Sir Samuel Hoare, he was one of two Foreign Secretaries from the 1930s to end his career as an Ambassador, to Washington. At the important Anglo-German meeting at Berchtesgaden in 1938, he mistook Hitler for a doorman (Lord Halifax, Fullness of Days - London: 1957; Andrew Roberts, The Holy Fox. A Biography of Lord Halifax - London: 1991).

Dec 1940-Jul 1945
Eden, Anthony, later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and 1st Earl of Avon

Jul 1945-Mar 1951
Bevin, Ernest: 'A turn-up in a million' (Bevin on himself) (Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary - London: 1983; Peter Weiler, Ernest Bevin - Manchester 1993).

Mar-Oct 1951
Morrison, Herbert, later Lord Morrison of Lambeth: did not quite have a diplomatic touch: he once joked 'Foreign policy would be okay except for the bloody foreigners' (B. Donoughue and G. Jones, Herbert Morrison - London: 1973).

Oct 1951-Apr 1955
Eden, Anthony, later Sir Anthony Eden (1954) and 1st Earl of Avon

Apr-Dec 1955
Macmillan, Harold, later Lord Stockton: his leading contributions were not made during his brief tenure of the Foreign Office. As Prime Minister his ventures in diplomacy earned him the nickname of 'Supermac' (Harold Macmillan, Tides of Fortune 1945-1955 - London: 1969; Alistair Horne, Macmillan. 1894-1956 - London: 1988).

Dec 1955-Jul 1960
Lloyd, Selwyn later Lord Selwyn-Lloyd: his contribution was overshadowed by his close involvement in the Suez operation, of which he had not been the prime protagonist (Selwyn Lloyd, Suez, 1956 London: 1978; D.R. Thorpe, Selwyn Lloyd - London: 1989).

Jul 1960-Oct 1963
Home, 13th Earl of, later Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Lord Home of the Hirsel: An able and tough negotiator with the Russians. He once suggested to the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, that he should become next Chairman of the Conservative Party on the grounds that his views had not changed for decades (Lord Home, The Way the Wind Blows - London: 1976).

Oct 1963-Oct 1964
Butler, Richard Austen, later Lord Butler of Saffron Walden: Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the late 1930s, 'Rab' Butler was said to be disappointed at his appointment as Foreign Secretary in 1963. He 'got high marks for his sense of duty, low marks for his lack of commitment' (Lord Butler, The Art of the Possible - London: 1971; Anthony Howard, Rab. The Life of R A Butler - London: 1987).

Oct 1964-Jan 1965
Gordon Walker, Patrick, later Lord Gordon-Walker of Leyton: A good linguist, he was one of the few British Foreign Secretaries this century who could converse in German with a German Foreign Minister (R. Pearce, Ed, Patrick Gordon Walker. Political Diaries 1932-1971 - London: 1991).

Jan 1965-Aug 1966
Stewart, Michael, later Lord Stewart of Fulham: Formerly a schoolmaster, he held office as Secretary of State in three different Departments. Reserved in manner, but strong in his convictions, he spent a good deal of his two terms as Foreign Secretary ably defending the Labour Government's stand on Vietnam against criticism on the left-wing of the Party (M. Stewart, Life and Labour - London: 1980).

Aug 1966-Mar 1968
Brown, George, later Lord George-Brown of Jevington: Abrasive, abusive and ebullient, he was considered by some of his Cabinet colleagues not to have 'precisely the right temperament for the Foreign Office' (Lord George-Brown, In My Way - London: 1971; H. Wilson, The Labour Government: 1964-70 - London: 1971).

Mar 1968-Jun 1970
Stewart, Michael, later Lord Stewart of Fulham: became first Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 17 Oct 1968.

Jun 1970-Mar 1974
Home, 13th Earl of, later Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Lord Home of the Hirsel

Mar 1974-Apr 1976
Callaghan, James, later Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: (Lord Callaghan, Time and Chance - London: 1987).

Apr 1976-Feb 1977
Crosland, Anthony: (S. Crosland, Tony Crosland - London: 1982).

Feb 1977-May 1979
Owen, Dr David, later Baron Owen of the City of Plymouth: (David Owen, Time to Declare - London: 1991).

May 1979-Apr 1982
Carrington, 6th Baron, Peter Carington: (Lord Carrington, Reflect on Things Past - London: 1988).

Apr 1982-Jun 1983
Pym, Francis, later Lord Pym of Sand: (Francis Pym, The Politics of Consent - London: 1984).

Jun 1983-Jul 1989
Howe, Sir Geoffrey: (Sir Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty - London: 1994).

Jul 1989-Oct 1989
Major, John: (John Major, John Major: The Autobiography - London, 1999).

Oct 1989-Jul 1995
Hurd, Douglas, later Lord Hurd of Westwell: (Douglas Hurd, The Public Servant - London: 1998).

Jul 1995-May 1997
Rifkind, Malcolm, later Sir

May 1997-Jun 2001
Cook, Robin

Jun 2001-May 2006
Straw, Jack