Catalogue description Records of the Chief Clerk's Department

In 1782 the Chief Clerk in the office of the Secretary of State for the Northern Department became First or Chief Clerk of the newly created Foreign Office. His duties were to prepare warrants for the Sovereign's signature, to see to the transmission of despatches, to keep the accounts of the Office, to record appointments, fees and gratuities and to pay salaries and bills. Except for the period 1804-1824, when Stephen Rolleston was Second Senior Clerk (to 1817) and then sole Chief Clerk, the duties did not involve him in any of the political (i.e. diplomatic) business of the Office. The chief clerk was given a supplementary clerk to assist him in 1814 and this may be taken as the origin of the separate Chief Clerk's Department.

After 1824 the Chief Clerk's duties were to keep the accounts of the Office, to record precedents of grants of money and of appointments, to prepare and seal Consular Commissions and Exequaturs, to issue Passports, to deal with the Treasury over the expenditure of the Diplomatic and Consular Services, to deal with correspondence concerning Foreign Orders and to be responsible, under the direction of the Secretary and Under Secretaries of State, for the internal arrangements and discipline of the Office.

In 1839 the day-to-day work in connection with diplomatic accounts, which had been the responsibility of the Third Senior Clerk since 1824, was restored. In 1841 the Treaty and Royal Letter business, which had been dealt with in a virtually independent department since 1813, was added; in 1846 questions relating to Diplomatic Privileges (formerly the concern of the Librarian) were also added.

In 1854 the Treaty and Royal Letter business, together with Foreign Orders and Diplomatic Privileges, passed once more to a separate department, but at the same time the Chief Clerk took over from the Librarian the superintendence of the Queen's Messengers. In 1891 Free Deliveries, Consular Commissions and Exequaturs and Passports (which had been dealt with in a subordinate Passport Office since 1855) were transferred to the Treaty Department.

In 1900 the Department's title was changed to the Financial Department, but in 1913 it became the Chief Clerk's Department again. After World War I some of the Chief Clerk's functions were transferred elsewhere. In 1921 a separate Communications Department became responsible for the King's Messengers; in 1922 financial matters became the concern of a Finance Officer.

In 1935 the title of the Department was changed to the Establishment and Finance Department, the Chief Clerk becoming Principal Establishment Officer; in 1938 the posts of Principal Establishment Officer and Finance Officer were merged.

In 1942 a separate Personnel Department was set up under the chief clerk's superintendence and in 1945 establishment and finance matters were divided between an Establishment and Organisation Department and a Finance Department, both under his superintendence. In 1964 an Accommodation Department, also under his superintendence was established.

The Diplomatic Service Administration Office was formed in January 1965 by amalgamating the administrative parts of the Foreign and the Commonwealth Relations Offices. The functions of the Chief Clerk's Department passed to the administrative departments of the new office.

At the head of the Office was a Chief of Administration, responsible to the Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Relations. Beneath him, the Office was organised into nine departments: an Inspectorate under a Chief Inspector which carried out inspection visits at overseas posts; an Accommodation Department dealing with all accommodation matters for overseas posts and for the Office in London; an Archives Department that handled registry and archive matters; a Communications Department dealing with communications between Diplomatic Service posts and London; a Conferences, Services and Supplies Department which dealt with general office administration and conference organisation; an Establishment Department dealing with the structure and organisation of the Office and general establishment matters; a Finance Department, which originally had joint heads, one for each of the former departments, but was integrated as a single department after the end of the 1964-1965 financial year; the Personnel Department dealing with general personnel, recruitment and conditions of service matters in the Diplomatic Service, and in particular with questions relating to staff transferring between the three former services; and a Security Department which handled questions of physical security for overseas posts and also matters relating to personnel security.

The Diplomatic Service Administration Office was absorbed into the new structure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when it was formed in October 1968, although the Office had been operating a common registry scheme with the Commonwealth and Foreign Offices since January 1967.