Foreign and Commonwealth Office and predecessors: Protocol and Conference Department:...

FCO 57

1922-1998

This series consists of registered files of the joint Foreign Office/Commonwealth Office Protocol and Conference Department before October 1968, and its successor in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office relating to protocol matters.

The series also contains approximately 70 Government Hospitality Fund files for the period 1922-1998 and 41 volumes of letters of appointments and recalls of British diplomats for 1969-2010.

By former file reference

For earlier records dealing with Commonwealth conference organisation see DO 161

For earlier Foreign Office records on protocol and conference matters see FO 372

Sound recordings made of various constitutional conferences organised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office prior to independence of British colonies have been passed to the National Sound Archive. The territories concerned are: Fiji, 1970 (NSA reference G1/01/01-39); Gilbert Islands, 1978 (G1/03/01-35); Tuvalu, 1978 (G1/01/02-010); and Antigua, 1980 (G1/04/01-068).

TP and TX file series

Public Record(s)

English

• Commonwealth Office, Protocol and Conference Department, 1967-1968
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Protocol and Conference Department, 1968-1982
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Protocol Department, 1983-1983
• Foreign Office, 1782-1968
• Foreign Office, Protocol and Conference Department, 1967-1968
• Foreign Office, Protocol Department, 1951-1962
• Foreign Office, Protocol, Treaty and Nationality Department, 1962-1968

1297 files and volumes

Open unless otherwise stated

From 1999 Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Topics

International

Series is accruing

The joint Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office Conference and Protocol Department, and its successor in FCO dealt with general matters of protocol (i.e. relations with the diplomatic cadre, diplomatic privilege and immunity, royal protocol and state and official visits, consular appointments, credentials and commissions, and honours matters) and international conference organisation. The joint Department was created as one of the earlier steps in merging the various overseas services in 1966, replacing earlier Foreign Office Protocol and Conference, Services and Supplies Departments and the Commonwealth Relations Office Constitutional and Protocol Department.