Servants of Diplomacy : A Domestic History of the Victorian Foreign Office

This book is about the Foreign Office. It is not about foreign policy. Nor for that matter does it have much to say about such traditional diplomatic skills as negotiation, reporting and representation. Rather, it is concerned with individuals who, though they served the needs of diplomacy, were not generally accepted as part of the Office's regular clerical establishment. Amongst these were the department's domestic servants, its archivists and librarians, and its home and foreign service messengers. They were functionaries with whose histories I became more familiar when thirty years ago I left academe to join what was then the Historical Branch of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO's) Library and Records Department (since renamed FCO Historians). A request for a brief history of the Librarian's Department and my later involvement in editing and contributing to a collection of essays on the suppression of the slave trade further stimulated my interest in those who, like the clerks of the Slave Trade Department, enjoyed neither the grading nor the career prospects of their colleagues in the Office's geopolitical divisions. There were also, it seemed, tales about accommodation and working conditions in Victorian Whitehall which deserved an airing. Retirement offered me the opportunity to explore these further. But what began as a recreational romp through the archives has since veered towards a more detailed examination of the impact of administrative reform, technological advances and an expanding diplomatic agenda upon the ranking, remuneration and responsibilities of specialist and subordinate staff. The result has been a sort of bottom-up history of those in the Foreign Office's employ who lived and laboured not just below stairs, but upstairs, on the stairs and down the road. Much of what follows is based upon Crown Copyright documents available at the National Archives, Kew, which I have cited and quoted from in accordance with the Open Government Licence. With the kind cooperation of Professor Patrick Salmon, the FCO's chief historian, I have likewise drawn upon the records of the Librarian's Department of the Foreign Office. I am also grateful to the staff of the British Library for assisting my access to the Aberdeen, Canning, Ellis, Granville and Hardwicke Papers in its possession; to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for facilitating my use of the Clarendon Papers in its custody and possession; and to the London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, for granting permission to reference correspondence in its Willoughby Maycock Collection. My thanks are no less due to the Deputy Keeper of the Records, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, for permission to cite and quote from the Lenox-Conyngham and Pakenham Papers; to the archivists of the University of Southampton in respect of the Broadlands Papers; to the present Lord Malmesbury in respect of the papers of the 3rd Earl of Malmesbury in the custody of Hampshire Record Office; and to Elizabeth Dunn of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and x Preface Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, who responded so promptly to my request for a copy of correspondence in the John Backhouse Papers. Finally, I should like to thank my former colleagues at FCO Historians for their assistance and forbearance, particularly Richard Smith, on whom I have inflicted too many of my chapter drafts for comment and correction, and Nevil Hagon, who has sought out and retrieved printed works unavailable elsewhere. I am also indebted to Professor Geoff Berridge of the University of Leicester for his advice, and to Michael Kandiah of the Department of Political Economy, King's College London, Alastair Noble of the Ministry of Defence's Air Historical Branch, and two other friends, Effie Pedaliu and Jimmy Athanassiou, for their encouragement and support. All errors of fact and interpretation are, of course, my own. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface Abbreviations Introduction: An office of class and classification Chapter 1: Keepers of the Office: Accommodation and domestic staff, 1782–1868 Residents Pets, pests and other miscreants Riot and debauchery Chapter 2: Keepers of the papers: The Librarian’s Department, 1801–68 Arranging, methodizing and digesting Quite de Jack in office Much irregularity The hardest working man in Europe Unhappy spirit Misnomer’s heir Chapter 3: Carriers of the papers: The King’s/Queen’s Messengers, 1795–1858 Persons of a very subordinate class A change in the class of persons New ways for old Matters of fancy and caprice The end of superintendence Chapter 4: Adjusting to the new: Accommodation and domestic staff, 1868–1914 Servants of the new Theft, negligence and security Divisions of labour Pestilence, redolence and sustenance Chapter 5: Managing the past: The Librarian’s Department, 1868–1914 Salaries, supplementals and salvation Archives, arrears and registers Publishing the record After the Hertslets Custody, research (and arrears) Chapter 6: Delivering the message: The foreign service messengers, 1858–1914 Rewarding gentlemen Here today but gone tomorrow Testing their worth Going local, paying less Conclusion: An office of distinction and domesticity Bibliography Manuscript collections Printed documentary and reference works Monographs, memoirs and essay collections Articles and contributions Dissertations Newsprint Index Servants of Diplomacy offers a bottom-up history of the 19th-century Foreign Office and in doing so, provides a ground-breaking study of modern British diplomacy. Whilst current literature focuses on the higher echelons of the Office, Keith Hamilton sheds a new light on the administrative and social history of Whitehall which have, until now, been largely ignored. Hamilton's examination of the roles and actions of the Foreign Office's domestic staff is exhaustive, with close attention paid to: the keepers of the office, keepers of the papers, the carriers of the papers and the efforts made to adapt to growing technological changes. Hamilton's exhaustive analysis also focuses on the reforms of 1905-06 and the Queen's Messengers during wartime. Drawing extensively from Foreign Office and Treasury archives and private manuscript collections, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest of British diplomatic history. Servants of Diplomacy offers a bottom-up history of the 19th century foreign office and in doing so, provides a ground-breaking study of modern British diplomacy. Whilst current literature focuses on the higher echelons of the Office, Keith Hamilton sheds a new light on the administrative and social history of Whitehall which have, until now, been largely ignored. Hamilton’s examination of the roles and actions of the Foreign Office’s domestic staff is exhaustive, with close attention paid to: the keepers of the office, keepers of the papers, the carriers of the papers and the efforts made to adapt to growing technological changes. Hamilton’s exhaustive analysis also focuses on the reforms of 1905-06 and the Queen’s Messengers during wartime. Drawing extensively from Foreign Office and Treasury archives and private manuscript collections, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest of British diplomatic history. Servants of Diplomacy offers a bottom-up history of the 19th-century Foreign Office and in doing so, provides a ground-breaking study of modern British diplomacy. Whilst current literature focuses on the higher echelons of the Office, Keith Hamilton sheds a new light on the administrative and social history of Whitehall which have, until now, been largely ignored. 0Hamilton's examination of the roles and actions of the Foreign Office's domestic staff is exhaustive, with close attention paid to: the keepers of the office, keepers of the papers, the carriers of the papers and the efforts made to adapt to growing technological changes. Hamilton's exhaustive analysis also focuses on the reforms of 1905-06 and the Queen's Messengers during wartime. Drawing extensively from Foreign Office and Treasury archives and private manuscript collections, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest of British diplomatic history Introduction : an office of class and classification -- Keepers of the office : accommodation and domestic staff, 1782-1868 -- Keepers of the papers : the Librarian's Department, 1801-1868 -- Carriers of the papers : the King's/Queen's messengers, 1795-1858 -- Adjusting to the new : accommodation and domestic staff, 1868-1914 -- Managing the past : the Librarian's Department, 1868-1914 -- Delivering the message : the Foreign Service messengers, 1858-1914 -- Conclusion : an office of distinction and domesticity "Servants of Diplomacy offers a bottom-up history of the 19th-century Foreign Office and in doing so, provides a ground-breaking study of modern British diplomacy. Whilst current literature focuses on the higher echelons of the Office, Keith Hamilton sheds a new light on the administrative and social history of Whitehall which have, until now, been largely ignored"-- Provided by publisher