Hammond Papers

FO 391

1831-1885

This series contains the private and semi-official correspondence of the Rt Hon Edmund (afterwards Lord) Hammond, Permanent Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from April 1854 to October 1873, with British representatives in the USA, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Turkey, as well as with Gladstone, Palmerston, Lord John Russell and others. One volume relates to the murder of British subjects by brigands in Greece in 1870 and there are three volumes of his private correspondence with his parents and wife.

Public Record(s)

English

30 volume(s)

In 1942 Foreign Office

Topics

International

Asia

Europe and Russia

Nationality

Crime

Americas

Middle East

Personal and family papers

These papers came into the possession of the Foreign Office at the death of Lord Hammond's daughter, the Hon. Margaret Hammond.

Edmund, 1st Baron Hammond was born on 25th June 1802 in London, son of the diplomat George Hammond. He was educated at Eton, Harrow and University College Oxford.

He began his career on 10th October 1823 as a clerk in the Privy Council Office, but on 5th April 1824 transferred to the Foreign Office. In 1831 he accompanied Sir Stratford Canning to Constantinople as a mission to fix the boundaries of the new kingdom of Greece and to arrange the accession of King Otto of Bavaria to the Greek throne. He also went with George Canning on a further mission to Madrid and Lisbon in 1832. Hammond went on to become chief of the Oriental department in the Foreign Office. Then on 10th August 1855 he was appointed permanent under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In February 1855 he accompanied Lord John Russell on his special peace mission to Vienna.

He retired on 10th October 1873, and the following year was raised to the peerage as Baron Hammond of Kirkella, Kingston-upon-Hull. He married on 3rd January 1846 Mary Frances Kerr. He died on 29th April 1890.