Women of the Foreign Office: Britain's First Female Ambassadors

By: Elizabeth Warburton and Richard Warburton

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Synopsis: Seemingly starting with the Suffragettes in the early twentieth century, the advancement of women's rights in the UK has been nonstop in the succeeding decades. Proponents of the cause have aimed for equality across all sectors: personal and civil rights, employment rights, equal pay - and yet Britain's first official female ambassador was not appointed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 1976. Here Elizabeth and Richard Warburton cast a detailed eye over the advancement of women as diplomats and ambassadors up to the appointment of Dame Anne Warburton. Leaving no stone unturned, they explore the culturally conservative, closed pillar of the Establishment - the Foreign Office - in the context of the times, and of the development of women's rights both in the UK and across the first world. Potted biographies of key players, including the three women who reached ambassador level, are supported by first-person accounts of what it was like to be a woman ambassador, and why they were the ones called to the task, filling an important gap in the wide topic of women's history.