The High Commissioners: Australia's Representatives in the United Kingdom, 1910-2010

Abstract

This book marks the centenary of the posting of the first Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom in January 1910. The occasion provides an opportunity to examine the activities of the high commissioners, who over the course of the next hundred years were responsible for representing the country in London and for managing Australia's oldest overseas relationship. The book also aims to show how the position of high commissioner has evolved in the context of Anglo-Australian relations and wider foreign policy. For Australia, there was a transition from empire to nation, from being part of a British world to part of the Asia-Pacific. For the United Kingdom, there was a fundamental shift from being the centre of a global empire to membership of the European Union. These massive changes inevitably reshaped the nature of the office, but did not detract from its stature as dramatically as might have been expected.